


A Shadow in The City

by PiteousFangirl



Category: Planet Peebles - Fandom, jacksepticeye, jacksepticeye - Fandom, markiplier - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, F/M, Magic, Magic-Users, Other, Urban Fantasy, Urban Magic AU, Vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2018-12-12 14:43:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 46,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11739204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PiteousFangirl/pseuds/PiteousFangirl
Summary: Researcher Amy Nelson is assigned to a case in New York working with investigator Mark Fischbach, only to uncover a plot that threatens the lives of supernaturals in the city and potentially the world.





	1. Neither Death Nor Life

  
The taxi trunk slammed shut as Amy placed the rest of her luggage on the curb. She tipped the cabi handsomely- maybe too handsomely judging by how fast he ducked back into the drivers seat- and looked all around her as he sped off. Apartment buildings lined both sides of the streets each looking startling different than the ones next to it. But even then, this place didn't seem  _too_  different from Boston. Except that the skyline boasted roughly ten times the amount of skyscrapers. The streets seemed just as busy, though she had arrived between rush hours so she imagined that the craziest was yet to come.

A problem arose when she realized she hadn't the slightest idea as to which one of these apartments she was supposed to be looking for. She had only told the cab driver the street name, expecting someone to be outside to meet her. She began to fish her pockets for the paperwork she haphazardly folded up in her haste to get a taxi, when she suddenly felt the sensation of someones eyes on her. She turned toward the building where a man leaned against it in the shadows cast by the towering buildings overhead.

He clearly found some amusement in seeing her confusion. The smirk he was failing to hide nearly pushing his eyes closed.

"You must be Mr. Fischbach." She approached him with an outstretched hand.

"Call me Mark," He pried himself from the wall and took a few steps toward her, "We're gonna be working with each other for while."

Amy gave him the once over, noticing some little and not-so-little quirks. A heavy sweatshirt with baggy sleeves covering his knuckles and with it's hood pulled over a black baseball cap. The front zipper was half opened with a pair of sunglasses hanging from the crew neck shirt underneath The way he stepped forward just enough so when their hands met, his was still out of the sunlight. And, of course, the big give away: The extended canine teeth.

"The University didn't tell me anything about my contact being a vampire." She remarked. She only noticed how badly it sounded after saying it.

Mark raised both eyebrows. "I'm impressed."

"I mean-" She stumbled a bit, "It just seems like something that would have been brought up is all I'm saying-"

"It's fine," He giggled, his eyes disappearing behind his cheeks. "I knew what you meant." He looked down at the three rolling suitcases just behind her. "Oh, is this all you brought?"

Amy adjusted the large tote bag on her shoulder and sassed back, "Ya know, it's just the essentials."

"Oh, 'just the essentials,' you say?" He moved around her to grab two of the suitcases. Facing as to have as little uncovered skin in the sunlight as possible. Amy made quiet note of how the few, small bits of light that made it seemed to have no effect on him.

"Mr. Fi-" She caught herself, "Mark, you don't have to do that."

"Don't you worry your pretty, little head about this. I got it. Just get the door for me."

Amy quickly grabbed the last suitcase, pulling up the handling and rolling it toward where Mark was carrying the other two off the ground with what seemed like no effort. The brick building Mark had been leaning against was the destination. It had double doors, wood and glass with ornate brass handles that opened to a lobby with cream colored walls and tiled floors. A wide stairway with wooden railings spiraled upwards with an aged, brass cage elevator in the center of it. Amy propped one door open with her suitcase and held the other open so Mark was able to enter the building with out twisting to accommodate the luggage he held. After retrieving it, she looked up and noticed Mark making his way toward the elevator rather than the stairs.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," She protested as he clicked the 'up' button on the small panel, "We are not going up in  _that_ , are we?"

"You wanna go up to the fifth floor by way of stairs?" He looked at her with a brow raised.

"Not really," She looked up at the metal box scrapping it's way down the elevator shaft, "But, is this thing safe? It looks kinda...dated."

"Nonsense! This old girl is as solid as a rock." As if to demonstrate this claim, the vampire opened the gate as the box reached their floor. It let out an ungodly shrieking noise that made Amy's teeth rattle. Mark seemed completely unfazed and motioned at the inside of the cage. "Ladies first."

"Oh, such a gentleman." She rolled her eyes as she loaded into the elevator, pressing as far back into as she could to make room for Mark. With the passengers and luggage loaded in, he closed the gate and pressed one of the buttons on the small panel, sending the shaky cage up. As Amy had predicted, the noise continued to make not only her teeth rattle, but every bone in her body seemed to shake along with them. Mark, however, seemed almost bored. Leaning against the wall of the elevator with his arms crossed over his chest.

"I thought vampires were supposed to have sensitive hearing," Amy scratched the inside of her ear as it began to ring, "Doesn't this bother you?"

"Eh." Mark shrugged, "You get used to it after a while."

"How long is a while?"

"Couple years."

The elevator jerked to a stop and Mark opened the gate before grabbing the bags and leading Amy to a wooden door just down one of the halls off the landing. An aged looking brass plate reading 5B was bolted above the peep hole. Mark stopped just before the door and lifted his leg, using his foot to push the door handle down and the door in. Amy followed him inside the apartment taking in her surroundings as she went.

The first thing that caught her eye was the fact that the place was fully furnished. The walls were exposed brick and the were lined with wooden pallets and metal grates that were cradling boxes and containers. The furniture was mismatched as were the drapes that covered the windows. A wastebasket filled with plastic bags and books and folders stacked around the floor and end tables confirmed what she suspected.

Mark had placed the luggage behind one of the couches and jumped over the back of it so he could settle himself down on it with his feet up on the coffee table.

"You doing okay over there?" Mark snapped Amy out of her thoughts.

"Just looking around."

"At what?"

She began motioning towards the things as she mentioned them. "Books and DVDs on the shelves, a bag of laundry by the door, and empty blood packs in the trash can- really thought you were supposed to dispose of them as medical waste but that's another issue for another time-" She turned toward him and crossed her arms over she chest, "This is your apartment, isn't it?"

"Ya like it?" He asked, smiling like a child who was far too proud of himself, "I just redecorated. I call it 'Bachelor Pad Chic.'"

"Sorry, it's just that the university didn't mention anything about having to crash at your place."

"They seemed to not mention a lot of things to you. Probably because they know you'll figure it out yourself."

"Thanks? I think?" She set the last suitcase down near the couch Mark sat on and fished her phone out of her bag, "I need to make a few phone calls."

"Bathroom's by the staircase." He pointed towards the doorway on the far side of the room. "Tell Professor Elwood I said 'Hi!'"

Beyond that doorway was a kitchen and dining area, obviously mostly unused. There were some dishes in the sink and another small trashcan filled with empty blood packs. An island counter top and small table with four chairs and around a small corner from that was a wrought iron spiral staircase leading to where she assumed the living quarters were. Next to it, was a wooden door with a brass knob. Amy scrolled thru her contacts list as she opened the door into the small bathroom. She hit the call button and closed the door behind her only to be met with the spider webbed motif of the broken mirror above the sink. The toilet was directly across from the door so she hadn't seen the sink or mirror when the door was open. She was startled upon noticing it and and left a bit stunned until a small voice from her phone snapped her out of it.

"Good afternoon! You've reached the research department of the Miskatonic University-"

"Maria!" Amy managed to peel her eyes from the shattered glass as she put the phone to her ear. 

"Oh Hey, Amy!" The female voice on the other end switched from a slightly lifeless script to a much more eager greeting. "You in New York, yet? How is it? You find the apartment okay?"

"I found the apartment just fine, the only problem I'm having is with the fact that someone seems to already be living here."

"Oh don't worry, sweetie. Mr. Fischbach is being reimbursed for cost of housing-"

"No, I mean, why was this ever even considered?" Amy tried her best to keep her voice as low as possible knowing that the vampire a few rooms over could definitely hear her. "The university can afford an actual apartment for me so why am I sleeping over at some guys house?"

"Well, the university can afford it but, frankly, they just don't want to spend the money."

"Tuition's as high as it is and they can't set me up at the Marriott?"

"Sorry, hun."

Amy ran her hand down her face with an exasperated sigh. "Okay, so, who is this guy than?"

"So, when the university contacted Manhattan's Department of Supernatural Services, we asked about all the potential agents that could act as a contact for this case. They said the longest standing agent they had was Mark Fischbach- although he's not one of their agents he's a freelance-"

"Oh, that makes me feel better." Amy interjected.

"They also said that he is familiar with every supernatural in the territory. And I mean every. Single. One. In the entirety of Manhattan."

"Jeez, how old is this guy? How long has he been here?"

"You know, they wouldn't say." Maria let out a chuckle, "They wouldn't even let us see his file."

"And everyone just thought that was okay? I could be boarding with a serial killer, right now- did you know he's a vampire?"

"Oh, yea, we knew that." There was a pause. "Did no one tell you?"

"I'm hanging up now, Maria."

"Honey, if it were up to me, I'd had set you up in a penthouse with a spa bath."

"I know, Maria."

"Good luck," Another pause as clearly she stopped right before hanging up, "And try not to become dinner."

"Thanks." Amy ended the call. She took a deep breath and one more look at the broken mirror before exiting the bathroom.

Mark wasn't in the living room where she'd left him but his hat and sunglasses were resting on the table. The suitcases were gone, hinting to her that he had taken them upstairs. A small shudder of embarrassment when through her as realized that the trip would have taken him by the bathroom and in very easy earshot of the conversation. She shook it off and made her way back to the stairs. They looked as stable to her as the elevator.  _There'd better be more than one bedroom up there._  She slowly made her way up, gripping the railing so hard her knuckles went white. The steps didn't creak or shake which put her at ease a bit.

The stairs stopped in a hallway that branched off to the right with three doors on the right-hand wall and one door at the far end. One of the doors- the one closest to the stairs- was open and letting a small bit of light into the dimly lit hall. "Mark?" She called, a bit apprehensive. There wasn't any doubt that Mark would be the one answering, but actually calling out left the opening for someone else to. Or maybe she'd just seen too many horror movies.

"In here." He answered from the first room. It was a plain room: bed, nightstand with a lamp, and a dresser. Two windows on the opposite wall, both fitted with heavy curtains, but only one had them fully drawn. Mark was throwing blankets and pillows on the bed when Amy walked in. "It's not the Marriott," He sassed, "But it's not bad."

"Oh, you heard that?" Amy laughed nervously, "I'm sorry. I just don't want to be intruding-"

"It's fine." He laughed. "People crash here all the time. And none of them have been serial killed."

Amy unwittingly fidgeted and wrung her hands. Her embarrassment must have been apparent as Mark spoke up again. "Hey. Seriously, It's okay. New city, new colleagues. You want to know what's going on." He sheepishly scratched the back of his neck. "The fact that the DoSS office has my file in lock-down hell really doesn't help either."

Amy shrugged then smiled. "Guess I'll have to figure it out myself."

"Good luck." Mark snorted. "But, seriously. If you need anything just tell me."

"Thanks."

Mark shuffled thru the folders that lay on the dresser. Amy moved past him to her bags which lay on the floor under the half open window. She lifted one up and placed it on the bed, opening it and taking inventory of what she had brought. She was had been told to pack for three nights, so she packed for five. Just to be certain. This suitcase held clothes and some books. They all held books, which is probably why she needed three suitcases.

"He's dead, by the way." Amy broke the silence after a few minutes.

Mark snapped to attention and looked at Amy with confusion and a hint of concern. "What?"

"Professor Elwood." She answered. "He retired in the 70s and passed away in the 90s."

Mark still looked confused but the concern had faded. "Oh. Well, that's too bad."

"But now that's something I can add to my notes about you." She mimed writing something on her palm. "Old enough to know Professor Elwood."

Mark rolled his eyes. "Well, save some of that investigative power for this case, Batman." He dropped a manila folder on top of her suitcase.

"Are we not going to the DoSS office to be briefed on- Oh, good lord!" Amy opened the folder and was met with a small stack of photographs paper clipped to front of the actual report. Crime scenes. Each more gruesome than the last. A body hanging from a fire escape, draped over the railing with it's head seemingly held on by only this skin on it's neck. A mangled corpse in an alley with it's arms and legs twisted and bent in a sickening manner. And they only got worse.

"Oh. Okay. Ya know." Amy was at a loss for words.

"Yea, probably should have warned you about that."

"Probably." She began leafing through the rest of the file. "Shouldn't the actual police be involved in this?"

"They are. To an extent." Mark explained. "There was a string of reported mugging and assaults where the would-be victims claimed to have been rescued by..." He paused trying to thing of a word.

Amy looked at him with an eyebrow raised. "By what?"

"By something." He raised his arms in a 'I don't know' motion, "Something with wings. They claimed it swooped down and grabbed their attackers and disappeared."

Amy's expression didn't change. "Huh."

"Yea. Police chalked it up to the first of the victims- a man being mugged on his way home from a pub- being drunk when the attacks happened, but then several other people reported similar instances. So, they deferred the case to the DoSS."

"Mass hysteria." Amy answered, "One person claims Mothman saved them, suddenly everyone's seeing him."

"The number of the reports wasn't the reason they passed it off. It was the nature of how- and where- the bodies were found. Mark reached into the folder Amy held and shifted through the papers and photographs. "Scott Garcia." He placed two photos next to each other on the suitcase. A mug shot of a disheveled, middle-aged man and a disfigured carcass wedged in the small space between two buildings. "A woman reported being attacked by him in Morningside. They found his body in Hell's Kitchen." He retrieved more pictures from the folder and put them over the previous two. A twenty-something with deep sunken eyes and a tattoo of a skull with roses in it's eye sockets on his neck and the picture of the body on the fire escape. "Anthony Poole. Mugged a couple in Chinatown and they found him in Carnegie."

"I know of most of these places you're talking about." She reminded him that she'd been in New York City for a few hours at most.

"They are all very far away from each other." He explained.

"Ah, I see."

"And get this: The damaged sustained to the bodies suggests they were dropped from a height anywhere from 50 to 60 feet. But the maiming happened before that and while they were alive."

"So, the assailant picked up the baddies, gave them a good spanking during the flight, then dropped them like a sack of bricks where ever it felt like it."

"That's about it."

"And I'm here to help you figure out who or what 'it' is?"

"Not really. We do have one lead." He tossed another folder onto the suitcase. "The first incidents line up with the arrival of what the Department is calling "The Stone Warrior" in the city."

Amy put the first folder down and opened the second. It was significantly thinner than the other. It had two sheets of paper and one picture. A young man with piercing blue eyes staring forward. A chill ran up Amy's spine. She felt like he was staring right at her but at the same time looking right through her. She pushed the picture to the side and scanned the papers. It was a typical DoSS registration form, but something wasn't right about it...

"Almost all of these fields are blank," She reflected. "Date of birth, race, species. Country of origin just says 'Northern Europe" and-" She pointed to the 'N/A's stamped next to 'First Name' and 'Last Name,' "The poor guy doesn't even have a name. Who the hell is he?"

"Well," Mark sat on the bed with his legs crossed in front of him. "In the 10th century AD, the Catholic Church enlisted what remained of the descendants of the Visigoths."

"The Germanic people that sacked Rome?"

"Yes. The church foresaw the upcoming crusades as inevitable but didn't know how long they were going to last. So, they did some kind of ritual to encase the warriors of this post-gothic tribe in stone so they could wake them up if they needed them to fight. A magical cryo-stasis, if you will."

"That sounds like a terrible deal. Why would they agree to that?"

Mark shrugged. "The chance to win back the glory of the Visigoth Kingdom from the Muslims?"

"So, I guess the fact that they've only just woken up means it didn't really work out."

"The Crusades went on and off for hundreds of years. The clergy in charge of the decision to wake them up constantly switching out due to, ya know, death."

Amy looked down at the picture again. The man looked like he could be a warrior, he had the muscles for it but he seemed more like a wax figurine of a warrior. Even through the photograph She could tell there was barely a trace of life in him.

"And one more thing." Amy looked up from the folder again at the sound of Mark's solemn tone, "There's no 'they' anymore. He's the only left. And even then. They're saying somethings wrong with him. He can't remember anything. Not even his name."

Amy looked back at the picture. "So, that's why I was called in. To find out who he is."

"Yup." Mark said with a smug smile. "In fact, we're gonna head over to St. Peter's Cathedral later to see him."

"But thousands of people must have arrived in New York when the attacks happened. Why does him showing up suddenly make him suspicious?"

"Honestly? I don't know. I'm pretty sure the department just wants an excuse to send someone over there. But, we'll see." He leaned over to gather the first folder, but something caught his eye causing him to recoil. "Holy shit, is that a gun?"

Her head snapped up. "What?" She looked down at her suitcase and saw what he was referring to. A black case with 'Springfield' printed across it that housed a 1911 pistol. "Oh. Yea. The university gave me that and a baton for self-defense." She closed the Stone Warrior's folder and placed it on the dresser. "I should have some ammo around here."

"They can't get you a hotel room but they can get you a gun?"

"That's higher education for you!" She began rummaging through the rest of her luggage.

"Don't you need a special permit for that?"

"They said they would take care of it, but for now," She retrieved a black tube twice as long as her fist. "I'll just stick with this."

"What is that?" As if to answer, Amy whipped her hand down and the tube extended with a satisfying series of clicks into a two foot baton. Mark jumped back at the sudden motion. "Jesus Christ!"

There was a moment or two of awkward silence as she struggled to retract the baton back into the handle. Mark watched with amusement for a bit before getting up, taking the baton from her, and with little effort, pushed it back into itself.

 "Thanks." Amy said, making a mental note of how Mark- a vampire- was able to touch the silver-cored baton with seemingly no issue.


	2. Casting The First Stone

The trip to The Cathedral of Pope Saint Peter had taken roughly an hour and a half. Amy knew how to traverse a city, but Mark gave her the rundown regardless. "Don't stop walking. Don't take anything from anyone. Don't give anyone anything. Keep your purse in front of you." And so on and so forth. She rolled her eyes when he had told her but as she dodged around people, trying to keep up with Mark, trying to navigate by way of his grey hood, she began to understand his concern. He, on the other hand, was effortlessly gliding through the crowds, occasionally stopping to turn and see how far Amy had lagged behind. Once or twice she managed to get ahead of him and he had to pull her back from out of the street by her jacket to avoid having her be mowed down by a car. Once down in the subway, he had to do the same to keep her from leaning too far over the edge of the train platform. They got off in Upper West Side and walked a few more blocks to the Gothic-style cathedral.

Three wooden doors stood at the top of the front steps, set in ornate pointed arches with the center door being the tallest. An inverted cross was fixed above the center arch and behind it, a rose window colored to look like a flower with four white petal and red marks at the edges. Several spires ran along the three-peaked gable roof with buttresses stretching from the center spires to the outer ones.

It was, by all accounts, awesome.

"I've always wondered why churches spend so much money on ornamentation." Mark pondered as they made their way up the steps.

Amy looked up at the carvings and crockets. "Well, I guess if something is important to you, you wanna do all you can to express that." Mark reached the door and grabbed the handle, turning to face Amy as she finished her climb. "Hey," she started, "are you gonna be okay in there?"

"Hmm?" He furrowed his brows, then realized that she meant: Vampires were typically repelled by churches or temples and religious images. They could enter a church if they needed to, but would be constantly fighting against an unseen force trying to push them out. Some described it as 'being deep under water.' "Oh, yea, I'll be fine. After a certain age, this crap stops bothering you." He opened the heavy door with a single arm and motioned her inside with the other. He pushed back his hood and removed his hat and glasses as he entered.

As decorative as the exterior was, the interior put it to shame. Rows of dark-wooden pews on either sides of a white marbled aisle, opulent chandeliers hung from the vaulted ceilings, and multi-colored light streamed in from the stained glass windows. But the most magnificent features of the church were the ten center-most pillars. Each had contained in them, a statue of what appeared to be an apostle of Jesus. They were painstakingly detailed, with every element symbolizing an aspect of that saint. No matter how morbid.

"Okay, I'll admit," Mark said looking up at the statue of Saint Bartholomew, who was carved as a figure of exposed muscle holding his own skin in his hands. "That's pretty cool."

Both of them made their way down the aisle of the empty church, admiring the figures. Saint Thomas, on his knees with a spear run through him. Saint Andrew, carrying on his shoulder the cross he died on. Saint James the Greater, kneeling while holding a sword against his own neck. The church's namesake, however, was not depicted in a pillar, but at the very front of the chapel. In the apse behind the alter, where most churches would have a traditional crucifix, was an inverted crucifix portraying the martyrdom of Saint Peter.

"So, that's eleven." Amy contemplated, "I wonder if they would display a statue of Judas. Or is Saint Matthias floating around here?"

"Nope." Mark flatly stated. He had turned around to face the door they'd entered and was looking above at the rose window. Amy turned to followed his gaze, her eyes widening as she saw it.

Above the archway of the door was a relief carving of a kneeling man. His head was down but his arms were outstretched to his sides. From his both his hands fell 15 coins each and around his neck was a noose fasted to a tree behind him. The whole carving had the slightest hint of color to it. The coins were a metallic grey and the flowers on the trees were white with red spots at the edge of the petals matching the unusual color of the round window above it. It was clear who this was meant to be.

"There he is." Amy mused, "Mr. Iscariot."

"Okay, I take it back," Mark said with a chuckle, "This is cool as He-" He suddenly turned back around at the feeling of movement behind him. A man and a woman, clearly a priest and ome kind of religious sister, approached them. He was dressed in the typical black cossack with the white tab at the collar, but she wore a more modern version of a habit. It was less of a robe and more of a black dress over a white blouse. Although, her headdress remained relatively unchanged "-llo. Hi. How are you? You must be Monsignor Donovan." Mark corrected himself, holding out his hand a bit too eagerly with a sheepish grin on his face.

The monsignor smiled and shook his hand. "I'm glad to see you admire the stonework so much, Mr. Fischbach."

Mark let out a nervous chuckle.

Monsignor Donovan turned to Amy and shook her hand as well. "And you must be Ms. Nelson."

"Pleasure to meet you, Monsignor."

He was a very old man, with white hair on the sides of his head and a warm smile that made Amy want to sit and speak with him for hours. He stepped back and motioned toward the nun. "Allow me to introduce Sister Mary Patrick."

"'Sister Patrick' is just fine though." The woman sprung forward with a surprising amount of pep. She shook Amy's then Mark's hands excitedly. "I know the whole shebang can get a bit long winded after a while. Some in the congregation just call me 'sis!' Though, I'm sure with the other sisters around it could get a bit confusing." She was an older woman, but nowhere near as old The Monsignor and she was wide-eyed like a little girl on Christmas morning. She reminded Amy of a science teacher back in high school who once let a lab table burn to cinders because she was too distracted with talking about how cool a chemical reaction had been to turn off the Bunsen burner.

Amy took the brief pause left open by Sister Patrick's need to inhale, knowing that if left alone she'd talk for hours. "This cathedral is simply amazing." She addressed no one in particular.

The Monsignor chuckled, clearly seeing past her strategy and playing along. "That it is. It's a bit unorthodox," Sister Patrick let out a loud laugh at the unintended pun, "But Jesus Christ was not the only one to give his life for mankind. There others after him who were martyrs for The Word of God." His smile faded suddenly. "But, that is a sermon for another time. Let us discuss why you both are here. The young man from the stone."

Even Sister Patrick's smile grew sullen. "The poor dear."

"We would like to try to speak with him." Amy explained. "If that's okay."

The Monsignor nodded. "Of course. Follow me." He turned and began walking toward the back of of chapel, Sister Patrick and Amy and Mark- putting his glasses and hat back on- in tow.

He lead them past the pews and through a door on the far wall. A few hallways later they exited to the outside where the sounds of the city and sights of the skyscrapers flooded their senses again. The serenity of the church had almost made Amy forget that they were still in the middle of Manhattan. But even out here, if one didn't look past the gardens and the series of motley buildings around it that created a kind of makeshift courtyard, you could swear this church was somewhere in the English countryside.

As they walked, The Monsignor began explaining. "We have had some developments since our last contact with the department. He has yet to speak to us, but he's begun to respond to us speaking to him. Though 'respond' is hardly the word to describe it. He eats when we bring him food and he changes clothes we lay out for him." He raised a finger as if he had just remembered something, "And we believe we've come close to learning his name."

"How did you manage that?" Amy asked.

Sister Patrick was eager to chime in. "Well, Sister Mary Francis had the idea of addressing him by a different name everytime we spoke to him."

"What?" Mark was baffled, "That's what they do to lost dogs in shelters."

The sister shrugged. "I think she meant it as a joke but we realized that it was better than nothing."

"Why not just pick a name and stick with it?"

"We want to make him comfortable enough so maybe he'll open up to us and we figured the best way to make him comfortable would be to give him something familiar."

Mark, still befuddled, looked at Amy. She simply shook her head toward him.

The group had reached the building opposite the exit of the church. A gray, three story house-like building with a white door and windows. The Monsignor held the door open as the rest entered. On the left of them was a small sitting room. A priest sat on a small couch reading, his small glasses balanced on the tip of his nose. On the right, a room with a long table surrounded by chairs, presumably a dinning room. They were led up the staircase in the hall in front of them. 

"So, he responded to a name? What name?" She asked softly, not wanting to disturb anyone in the house and also not sure of who was in the loop.

"Tyler." Monsignor Donovan answered.

"Not exactly the most Visigoth sounding name." Mark pointed out, again, removing his accessories.

"Sister Mary Lawrence's great nephew is named Tyler." Sister Patrick started up again, "I, of course, tried 'Patrick' and you can imagine my disappointment when it didn't work."

They reached the top of the stair and turned to climb another set to the third floor.

"'Tyler' might be the closest to his actual name." Amy mused. She suddenly recalled the conversation back at the apartment regarding the state of the bodies found. "Monsignor, are you aware of the details of the case?"

"Which details specifically?" They finished their ascent and began down the right hand hallway. Doors lined the walls on each side.

Amy remained as vague as possible. Not wanting to give out too much information incase he didn't know. "Specifically, the cause of death."

"Ah, yes. 'Dropped from a height of roughly 50 feet' I believe I was told.It was the reason the department contacted us about the case in the first place."

"What's the connection between falling objects and Tyler?" Mark kept his voice low as did everyone as they approached the door at the very end of the hall.

Both The Monsignor and Sister Patrick stopped walking, catching Mark and Amy by surprise. The clergyman turned and looked at them solemnly. He let out a sigh. "Tyler is not a prisoner here. He's here for his own safety, but he is not being held against his will." He paused with another sigh, "That being said, he's managed to leave his room without us knowing. With no one seeing or hearing him leave."

"Where does he go?" Amy looked past him at the door a short ways away.

"We don't know where he goes or even how he gets out." Sister Patrick was almost as solemn. "But we know where he ends up. Every so often- on the nights that we now know the attacks took place- we woke up to find Tyler not in his room, but..." She trailed off, seemingly having trouble believing it herself. "On the roof of the cathedral."

"What?" Amy and Mark both blurted out.

"There are ways to the roof, of course," The sister continued, "For maintenance and repairs. But, upon retrieving him, we found all the doors locked."

Mark furrowed his brow and let out a small hum of bewilderment.

Amy crossed her arms over her chest. "So, he can either climb," She quietly contemplated, "Or he can fly."

They continued what was left of the journey to the door at the end of the hallway.

"Here we are." Monsignor Donovan placed one hand on the door knob and with other, gave a few soft knocks on the door itself. There was no answer. "Tyler?" No answer. He slowly opened the door and took a step inside. "You have guests." Still nothing. He turned and motioned for Mark and Amy to follow him again. Sister Patrick stepped back, silently opting out of joining.

The door opened to reveal the spartan room within. Cream-colored walls with the same wood flooring as the rest of the house. A wooden desk and a chair was against the wall across from the floor, a chest-of-drawers on the wall opposite a window. Under the window, along the wall, a single bed. It was most likely a pre-furnished room for the clergy to sleep and Amy would hazard a guess that all of the sleeping quarters resembled this. Except for the thin layer of what seemed like gravel on all the horizontal surfaces including the floor, dresser tops, windowsill and the bed where a figure sat slumped against the headboard. He looked even more bereft of life than he did in the picture in his file. His hair was unkempt, his white t-shirt was wrinkled, he wasn't even wearing any shoes. He didn't move an inch as the trio shuffled in making a scraping noise as the grit scratched under their feet. He only looked at the floor.

Amy looked at The Monsignor who answered with a nod. She slowly walked closer to the man on the bed. He sat with his legs over the side, so close to the wall that his knees touched the side of the desk. Amy pulled the chair- a plain, unpadded thing without even an armrest- up to this point, trying to get as close as she could while still maintaining a comfortable distance for both of them.

She placed her bag on the floor next to the chair before sitting. He still hadn't moved. The only sign of life was the rising and falling of his chest and he breathed. He didn't even blink.

"Hi, Tyler." Her tone was similar to the tone one would use to speak to a child.

No answer.

"I'm Amy." She unwitting brought her hand to her chest as if pointing to herself.

Silence.

She paused for a moment. "Can you understand me?"  _That sounded stupider out loud._

Nothing.

Amy turned to The Monsignor. He was standing next to the door and Mark had his arms crossed and was leaning against the door. "Have you tried speaking to him in any other language?" She felt weird talking about him as if he weren't arms length from him.

"Brother Witmore tried addressing him in German. Sister Mary Jordan tried in Spanish. It made sense to us, considering the region he comes from."

"That's a millennium of evolution in language." Amy pointed out. "Nine hundred German and two thousand German are vastly different at their most similar points." She looked back at Tyler and thought a moment. "Have you tried Latin?"

"Well," She heard the slight embarrassment in Donovan's voice. "Our knowledge of Latin here is not exactly what you would call," He verbally stumbled, "'fluent.'"

Mark snorted in mockery. "Man they'll anyone wear that collar these days."

Amy had an idea.

" _Salve, Tyler._ " She greeted him again.

There was something. It was subtle. It was fleeting. She doubted for moment it even happened. But it was there. Under the disheveled mess of brown curls, his eyelids twitched as if he had just stopped short of blinking.

It must have shown on Amy's face. "What?" Monsignor Donovan questioned frantically, "What is it? What's happened?"

Amy ignored him, choosing to focus on Tyler.

" _Amy est nominis mei._ " She told him her name again.

The slight movement of his eyelids again.

" _Putasne intellegis me?_ " She inquired if he could understand her.

She expected the eye twitch again. Maybe even a blink or two. Instead, he slowly and shakily raised his head. Amy let in a sharp breath as his glass blue eyes locked with hers.

"A...my..." It was only a whisper.

She was at a lost.  _"Recte dicis,_ " She assured him he was right, " _ego sum Amy._ " She pointed at herself again.

He continued to stare at her for what seemed like ages. Then, slowly began to turn his head toward Mark, who had been looking on the exchange with brows furrowed and mouth slightly agape.

" _Nomen est Mark._ " Amy explained.

Tyler slowly turned back to face her.

" _Am...icus..._ " He whispered again.

" _Recte dicis. Recte dicis. Tui sumus._ " She wasn't sure if was asking if they were his friends, or if he misunderstood her name.

He said nothing. He only stared at her.

" _Nos volo ad auxilum te._ " She explained their desire to help him.

His eyes fell downcast against.

" _Indica mihi quid recordamini._ " She asked what he remembered.

He was silent. Amy repeated the question a few more times, rephrasing it each time just to make sure he understood. But it was a while before he responded. And not in the way any of them expected.

"Eyes."

Her jaw dropped and for a moment, she was left speechless. "W-what?"

"Eyes." He repeated. "Close...eyes."

She abandoned the dead language. "You remember closing your eyes?"

He let out a pained grunt and raised his hand to his head, tangling his fingers in his hair. Amy gasped in horror at what she saw: On his arms, which had been hanging lackadaisical at his sides with his hands in his lap, were covered in some kind of lesion. But none like Amy had ever seen. They were gray and had the visual texture of stone- cracks and chips and all- and Amy was willing to bet that they would feel like stone if she were to touch them. They didn't move like skin would, but rather like something that had been placed on top of his skin as it slowly crumbled with dust and small pebbles falling to the floor.

The gravel-like layer on the floor and windowsill suddenly made sense.

Amy turned Mark, who had clearly made the connection himself. He had detached himself from the door, uncrossed his arms and just stood in shock. Monsignor Donovan looked more than uneasy as he clutched the silver cross that hung from his neck.

She turned back to Tyler. He was clearly in pain; He was slouched over, eyes shut, and jaw clenched. She called his name a few more times but to no avail. He only continued to mumble the same three words.

"Close...your...eyes..."

Mark finally spoke up. "I think we're done here." The apprehension evident in his voice.

Amy sighed. He was right. They weren't getting anymore out of him and if trying to remember was hurting him somehow she didn't want to make this worse. She leaned forward and placed her hand gingerly on the hand that still rested in Tyler's lap. He opened his eyes at her touch but didn't look at her.

"We have to go now, Tyler." She assured him. "But we'll be back."

No answer.

Amy stood up and moved to place the chair back under the desk, but was stopped when Tyler seized her by the wrist. His grip didn't hurt, but the suddenness of it made her cry out which made Mark dart forward and rip Tyler's arm away from Amy before stepping in between them. Tyler seemed completely unaware of this happening. He reached out to Amy with desperation in his eyes and voice.

"Silver." He choked out. "Silver daggers. Engulfed in flame. On their cloaks."

"Whose cloaks?" Amy tried to push past Mark, but he held his ground acting as a barrier in case the crazed man tried anything else.

It felt like an eternity before he answered. "I did not close my eyes." And just like that, he was still again. He slummed over against the wall and stared at the floor. Exactly how he was when they first came into the room. Amy tried again to maneuver around Mark in an attempt to sit back down and try and revive him, but Mark put a hand on her shoulder and steered her toward the door, grabbing her bag off the floor as he past.

Sister Patrick was standing in the threshold with a hand over her mouth in shock. She stepped back into the hall when Mark and Amy exited followed by Monsignor Donovan who softly shut the door behind them.

Amy was the first to break the silence. "What's wrong with his arms?"

"We don't know." The Monsignor shook his head. "It's some kind of...growth that forms on various parts of his body then simply crumbles off of him. We think it to be an effect of the ritual."

"What the hell kind of ritual does that?" Mark scoffed. "He was supposed to be encase in stone not changed into stone."

"We don't know if this was meant to be the result."Sister Patrick explained. "The abbey that originally housed the statues didn't know either. None of them had ever been woken up before."

"And we don't have anything to compare it to now." Amy mused. "What happened to the other stone warriors?"

Monsignor Donovan and Sister Patrick looked at each other with unease.

"They were destroyed." The Monsignor answered.

"How?"

"The monks entered the chamber where the statues were kept, only to find them all smashed. Only one of them remained intact. Though barely. So they preformed the ritual to pull him from the stone. And here we are."

"Do we have any idea who could have done it?"

"None. Only a select few of the monks and nuns of that abbey had access to the chambers, but none of them had been down there in years."

"So, someone broke in...?" Mark began.

"Someone with silver daggers on their cloaks." Amy finished the thought. She shook the Monsignor and Sister's hand. "We'll come back as soon as we can find some more information on this." And before they could answer, she turned and made her way out of the house with Mark in tow.

He walked along side her as they re-entered the church. "Well," He sighed, "that was certainly something." He looked down and saw she was digging through her bag. She fished out the manila folder that held the case file, making sure the gruesome pictures remained out of sight. She had skimmed the file on the way to the church and only just remembered something. Still walking, she leafed through the pages until finally coming across what she was looking for.

"There!" She handed the folder over to him, pointing to the passage she wanted him to read.

He took it from her and slowed to a stop, forcing her to stop as well.

"'Debris found in lacerations on corpses identified as crushed stone, though not consistent with any type of stone found in the local areas.'" He read off the report. "Huh. Well there's connection number 2."

"You saw it, too, right?" She rubbed her forearms round the spots where Tyler's were covered with the strange stone. "Those splotches were just solid rock. And Monsignor Donovan said they just appear then crumble off him?"

"It still doesn't explain the whole 'dropped from great heights' thing." He reminded her as he handed her back the file.

They reached the door and Mark opened it, letting Amy out first while he put his hat and sunglasses back on. They descended the steps onto the surprisingly empty sidewalk.

"We need to figure out what was involved in this ritual." She placed the folder back in her bag. "Where is Manhattan's main supernatural resource center?"

"What like the main DOSS office?" He pointed over his shoulder with a thumb, though it was highly unlikely what he was referring to was in that direction. "It's in one of the buildings near City Hall."

"No, like," She waved her hands around, trying to think of the words. She had never had to explain what a CoSR building was before. "In Boston it's called a Center of Supernatural Resources? You can go in and get information on supernatural-related things specifically?"

"Ah," his brows raised in realization. "The library."

"It's not a library exactly-"

"No, I mean it's actually in the library."

"Oh." She felt slightly embarrassed for some reason. "Sorry."

"The New York Public Library-"

Amy let out an excited gasp. "The New York Public Library?! Oh, I've always wanted to visit it!"

He chuckled. "Well, today's your lucky day. We need to go in and ask for Matthew Patrick. He's the head of the resource department." Playfully smacked her arm, he added, "He's a librarian, like you."

"I am not a librarian." She scoffed at him. "I am a researcher, Thank you very much."

"What do you use in your research?"

"Well, in my line of work, mainly books and written-"

He cut her off. "Well, there ya go, then! Books! Librarian!" He raised his arms in an exaggerated shrug and began sauntering down the sidewalk. "Books!"

Amy rolled her eyes and shook her head, but found herself unable to stop smiling as she followed him.


	3. Book of Life

"...And it's the second largest library in the United States, after the Library of Congress, of course." Amy had been rambling the entire trip to the New York Public Library. Facts and factoids about the library itself, who had been involved in building it, and even movies and TV shows it had appeared in. "Do you know the names of the lions in the front?"

Mark smirked and shook his head. He did. He knew because she had told him several times during the journey, but he wasn't about to rain on her parade. To anyone else, it would have been annoying, but seeing the excitement in her eyes and seeing the smile on her face, Mark couldn't help but egg her on.

"Patience and Fortitude!" She declared as said lions came into view. A few passersby raised an eyebrow in her direction, but she was far too absorbed in the majesty of the marble felines to notice. She went on; "They were originally named Leo Astor and Leo Lenox after the library's founders, John Jacob Astor and James Lenox. But, during the Great Depression, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia changed their names to Patience and Fortitude."

"Which one is which?" Mark asked.

Amy stopped halfway up the steps. She thought a moment, looked at her own position facing the entrance and the positions of the statues, and pointed to her left, "Patience," then to her right, "Fortitude."

"Wow, you're good."

They continued the trekked up the stairs, through the porticus and through the massive doors into the main hall. A line of velvet ropes led to a door immediately in front of them and some kind of ticket booth. A few magazine racks filled with brochures for attractions at the library and surrounding areas in the city. Two marble staircases on either sides of the hall, both decorated with names carved into the stone and busts of important people in small alcoves. They walked up to the ticket booth and a young man meticulously shaped facial hair greeted them with a smile.

"Welcome to The Stephan A. Schwarzman Building of the New York Public Library, my name is Oscar. Are you here for the seminar on how the Dewey Decimal System has affected the layouts and interfaces of digital data storage?"

Amy gasped. It was genuinely a presentation she wanted to see. "Oh, that does sound interesting..."

"Focus, Amy." Mark reminded.

"Oh, right." She softly palmed her forehead to snap herself out of it. "We're actually looking for the head of the Specialized Resource Department? I believe his name is Matthew Patrick?"

The man's eyebrows raised at the name. "Um, I can't help you with that. But," He pointed upwards towards one of the staircases. "There's a help desk upstairs that can direct you to where you need to go. Okay?"

"Oh. Okay, thank you so much!" She turned away from the booth, but not before grabbing a pamphlet from the display, and her and Mark took the stairs up, passing a couple marble busts of Mister John Jacob Astor and Mister James Lenox. The stairs led to another hall with dark wooden walls and multiple painted murals of figures both historical and fictional in the actions of reading or writing. Next to a door with 'Bill Blass Public Catalog Room' written above it in gold, an unamused woman with glasses held on with a beaded cord sat typing. It took a few minutes after approaching the desk before she notice them, turning to Amy with an eyebrow raised over the glasses thick frame.

"Welcome to The Stephan A. Schwarzman Building, the main branch of The New York Public Library System. My name is Lois, can I help you find anything today?" She dryly recited. It was the tone of a woman who had repeated this line several thousand times in past hour.

"Hi, Lois," Amy answered, "We're looking for a Matthew Patrick. Is he in today?"

"Who?"

"Matthew Patrick," Amy repeated, assuming the woman hadn't heard her. "The head of the specialized resource department?"

Lois seemed to take exception to the request. Her face went from an indifferent frown to an outright scowl. "Oh, really funny." She sneered. "

"I-I'm sorry?" Amy was taken aback.

"I didn't just start yesterday, sweetheart." She scowled. "I've been working here since before you were born."

"Uh-"

"You think you're not the hundredth person just today to ask to speak to 'Matthew Patrick?'" She spat out the name as if it left a sour taste in her mouth.

"I don't understand-"

"You God damned spoiled brats have computers in your pockets and you still get your kicks harassing the hired help?!" By now a handful of individuals who had been passing through the hall had stopped to witness the scene the woman was making. "Well, go find someone else to annoy the shit out of! 'Cause I'm on my break!" And with that she slammed a small plaque reading 'HELP DESK CLOSED' onto the desk and stormed off, leaving Amy completely stunned. A few of the passersby remained, giggling at what had just unfolded and she turned around to see they weren't the only ones enjoying the show.

Mark was covering his mouth with both of his hands, shaking with barely contained laughter. His face was red- quickly turning purple- and tears were running down his cheeks.

"Did you know that was gonna happen?" Amy narrowed her eyes at him, pointing with a thumb over her shoulder at the now-empty desk.

He slowly shook his head. He didn't move his hands nor did he stop shaking.

"Mark."

"I just-" He snorted, "I didn't-" He chortled. He drew in a long breath, then broke down, doubled over with uncontrollable laughter.

"You set me up!" She accused.

"You should have seen the look on your face!" He managed to choke out between wheezes.

"Does 'Matthew Patrick' even exist?" Amy folded her arms over her chest. But he didn't answer her. He just continued to laugh.

This laughing fit continued on for a few minutes. Those who had stopped to witness the initial blow-up had went on their way and the occasional person walked in and out going about their business. Mark slowly began to collect himself.

"You done?" Amy raised a brow at him.

He wiped at his eyes and nose with the sleeve of his hoodie. "I'm-I'm okay." He sniffed.

Amy rolled her eyes and turned back toward the staircase only to stop suddenly upon finding herself face to face with a young woman with brown hair and wide eyes, holding an overstuffed clipboard.

"Hello, I'm Stephanie Cordato. You can call me Steph, if you'd like." She cheerfully shook Amy's hand. "You said you were looking for Matthew Patrick?"

"Yea, I'm sorry about that." Amy began, "My-" She looked over her shoulder at Mark who was still patting away tears, "-colleague here decided-"

"Follow me, please." She abruptly turned and began walking without even stopping to see if her instructions were followed.

Mark and Amy trailed after her, quickly at first to catch up with her, then at the same brisk pace she walked. She led them through main hallways, side hallways, staircases, and even an elevator all with the same pleasant smile on her face. Just as Amy was beginning to suspect another prank, they stopped at an office door with 'MATTHEW PATRICK' printed on the frosted glass and 'HEAD OF SPECIALIZED RESOURCES' printed under that. Stephanie opened the door to an empty office and seemed to speak to the empty desk chair.

"Mr. Patrick, Mr. Fischbach and the researcher from the university are here." Obviously, the chair didn't answer. But, Stephanie beckoned them inside as if it had and Amy was once again starting to feel this was a practical joke. Before she could speak, however, the chair turned and jerked back- as if someone had sat in it- and turned back as a figure faded in from complete transparency to near-complete opacity.

"You must be Amy Nelson!" He stood- despite the desk in front of him- and walked toward her- still with no regard for the desk. He offered a handshake and Amy accepted it, opting to just go with it at this point. His touch-and indeed, the air around him- felt like her hand was being held over an air conditioning vent.  _A side effect of the endothermic reaction that occurred when he manifested physically._

"Pleasure to finally meet you, Mr. Patrick."

"Please, call me Matthew!" The ghost insisted with a wide smile.

"I see now why the help desk didn't understand who I was talking about."

Matthew let out a loud laugh. "You asked the help desk about me?"

Stephanie explained. "She asked Lois."

Matthew threw himself with more laughter, falling backwards through the desk and into the floor, cutting off the guffawing suddenly.

"Wait for it..." Stephanie instructed after a second or two of silence.

He appeared again- the same way as the first time- standing behind the desk. "She's a very," he shrugged his shoulders. "Expressive lady."

"It was hilarious." Mark added.

"I was set up!" Amy began an attempt to defend herself but to no avail.

"But, enough of that! Getting right down to business," Matthew wiggled his eyebrows at them. "Word on the street is there's a stone-man in the city fresh from the 10th century!"

"So, you know about him?" Mark asked.

"Are you kidding? Everyone in the Department knows about him! What's he like?" Matthew bent down, resting his chin in his hands with his elbows on the desk. "Raving barbarian? Knight in shining armor? Scared of modern technology? Has he referred to a car as a 'metal beast,' yet?"

Amy smirked and arched an eyebrow at him. "Ya know, I don't recall mentioning whether or not we'd encountered him."

Matthew arched an eyebrow back, accepting the unspoken, intellectual mind-duel that had seemingly been issued.

"Also, you probably already know Mark because you both work for the department," She continued, "But, Stephanie knew I was from the university without me having to tell her."

Matthew gave a toothy, sheepish grin.

"Oh, God help us! They're the same person!" Mark ran a hand down his face in exasperation.

"We have the current copy of the case file. The department office called and said you might be coming over today." Stephanie assured them.

"Darn it, Stephanie!" Matthew snapped his fingers and sat down in his chair like a child that had just been scolded, "ruining the fun!"

"So, you know about the attacks." Amy said.

"But not the connection between rockman and the attacks."

"There's a few." Mark explained. "But, they're all pretty circumstantial."

Stephanie took a pen from the top of her clipboard and flipped a page over a few pages. "Go on." 

"Connection number one is timing." Amy began, "He arrived in New York City around the same time the first attack took place. Nothing case solving, but it's worth noting." She gave a few seconds as Stephanie scribbled down the information with amazing speed.

"Connection numero dos," Mark held up two fingers, "is what drew the DoSS to the case in the first place. Apparently, the clergy at St. Peter's found him the roof of the cathedral the the morning after the nights of the attacks. No one has any idea how he got up there. Not even him."

Matthew scratched his chin in thought. "So he's a climber, a jumper," He cocked his head in their direction with a raised eyebrow, "or a flyer."

"He looks like he would have the muscle to climb." Amy pointed out.

Steph flipped through the papers a bit. "He would need a good arm to throw the," she cleared her throat, "victims where they ended up if he were just standing on the top of a building."

"And," Mark mused, "dead or alive, carrying a body up a building would be more trouble than it's worth." He put his hands in his hoodie pockets and sneered a bit. "Plus, he wasn't that muscular."

"So, that leaves jumping or flying." Stephanie looked at the ghost with skepticism in her expression, "Is jumping even really an option, though? Like, who jumps?"

"People who jump really good, Stephanie!" He slammed his hand down on the desk.

"Well, he didn't have any wings that we could see." Mark added.

"See? Jumping could be an option!" He he looked back from Stephanie to Mark and Amy, "So, judging by the way you presented the first two connections, I'm guessing there is another?"

Mark and Amy exchanged looks. "Well," Amy sighed, "The third connection is...this thing that's wrong with him. Whatever ritual the church used to seal him in the stone has affected him." She rubbed her forearms and wrists. Mark crossed his arms, rolling his shoulders a bit as his own skin crawled at the memory of Tyler's. "His skin grows a layer of some kind of stone-like substance over it like a rash or a scab. Then it just crumbles off."

Matthew crinkled his nose and furrowed his brow. "What?"

"The report mentioned some kind of sediment found in and around the bodies." Stephanie flipped through more of the papers, stopping to occasionally scribble something down.

"And you think it has to do with the ritual?" Matthew was clearly now more interested in the stone warrior himself than whether or not he was involved in the murders.

Amy shrugged. "We don't know. We don't know anything about the ritual. That's why we're here-"

Matthew stood up- again, passing through the desk in some places- with raised finger in excitement. "To the research room!" He moved as if he were going to walk around the desk, but faded completely out of view while doing so. Stephanie placed the pen back into place on her clipboard.

"Follow me." She lead them out of the office and through more corridors and stairwells until they reached a set of double doors, wooden with inset frosted glass. Next to the door frame was a plaque that read "Specialized Resource Research Hall." Inside, the walls were lined with bookcases filled with hardcover and leather bound tomes. A small railed walkway circled the room halfway up the wall. On the right side of the room was a series of small shelves and filing cabinets and a desk or two with computers on them. The left side of the room had several tables pushed together to created two long ones surrounded on all sides by a dozen or so chairs. At the moment, books were seemingly phasing into existence and dropping into one of the tables with loud thuds. As the trio sat, the books stopped appearing and Matthew faded into view, also sitting in one of the chairs.

"Picked out some things to start with!" He pointed to each of the books as he explained them. "A few encyclopedias on events leading up to and surrounding the crusades sorted by relevance of country; an encyclopedia on magic and mundane uses for various stones and minerals; An anthology of accounts of men and women of the church interacting with supernaturals, both non-fictional and fictional; and some sorted grimoires of magic user's who specialized in preservation rituals." He rubbed his hands together. "Ya, know just to start us off."

"Holy shit." Mark was aghast at pile of books in front of him. Some of them were no bigger than the latest New York Times Bestseller, but many of them were roughly the size of the computer screens a few feet away. One was bigger than the small tables that made up the large table they sat at. Amy grabbed one of the medium sized ones and read the faded and frayed spine.

"'Wisps, Witches, and Werewolves: Supernatural Folklore From Around The World And How They Are And Are Not Based In Fact.'" She read aloud. "Wow. That Is a title."

"Yup." Matthew had a proud smile on his face.

The bookworm shuffled through the pile to examine more of the tomes. "'Manuscripts of Beagly of Gir.' 'De Nogla's Study of Conservation of Life Through Use of Alchemical Processes.'"

"' _Saxum et Lapis?'_ " Mark struggled to read the Latin title. He let out a flustered breath. "Woof."

"Well, we'd better get started then." Amy was clearly more excited than the her vampire friend was about this. She reached into her bag and pulled out a small, spiral bound notebook with a cartoony depiction of Jupiter on the cover and a ball-point pen that would have been simple and unassuming if not for the bobble-headed alien pen topper sprouting from the end of it. She saw Mark trying to stifle laughter at the sight of it. "What?"

"Nothing." He grabbed a random book and opened to a random page.

A few hours went by in silence with a few bouts of vocal brainstorming. Occasionally, Matthew 'got up' to retrieve more books as the previous ones were placed on the other table and when Amy's stomach growled so loud that both the ghost and the vampire gave a slight jump in surprise, Stephanie ordered food for the two of them. Sandwiches from a local deli were brought to them by an intern Stephanie and Patrick referred to as Jason. Amy, not realizing how hungry she had been after not eating since she arrived in the city, devoured the thing while Mark turned the book pages as to not get them dirty. She had filled almost half of the paper in her in her notebook when Matthew spoke up, leaning back with his fingers laced together being his head.

"So, what do we got?"

Amy flipped through her notes. "We already knew that the tribe Tyler was what was left of the descendants of the Visigoths after The Umayyad Caliphate's conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century AD."

"Ya, know. That." Mark added in.

"It was under Islamic rule but Christians were allowed to live there and practice but were considered second class citizens. There were a few revolts with the most famous being Pelagius winning back what is now northern Spain at the battle of Covadonga."

Mark snorted at the word. Amy ignored him.

"He used this victory to establish the Kingdom of Asturias in the year 718. It was mainly a Christian kingdom but many of the monarchs made an attempt to combine the Christianity of the time with the old Visigoth traditions. It must not have worked because, in the year 910, the kingdom broke up into three: Leon, Galicia, and Asturias. They formed into the Roman Catholic Kingdom of Leon in 924." She turned to Mark. "The 10th Century."

"When our boy was put on ice, so-to-speak." He finished the thought out loud.

"Exactly."

"The Kingdom of Leon wasn't really involved in The Crusades until the 1100s." Matthew pointed out.

"Correct, but," Amy grabbed on of the massive tomes and opened to a bookmarked page. She skimmed the words before pointing out a section. "A certain clan left the Kingdom because they rejected the conversion to Roman Catholicism. So, they defected to the Holy Roman Empire who, the time, were practitioners of Chalcedoian Christianity. The same denomination as the original Visigoths."

"What clan?" Stephanie asked.

Amy looked down at the book. She stared at it for a while. She pursed her lips, narrowed her eyes, and furrowed her brow. Finally, she pushed the book into the center of the table and pointed to the cause of her confusion. The other three leaned in to read, but clearly were at even more of a loss.

"Holy Toledo!" Stephanie exclaimed.

"Is that even a real letter?" Matthew's distress at his lack of knowledge of the symbols was evident.

Mark took a shot at pronunciation. "Ch-...Sck-...Sche-..." He stopped briefly to rub his eyes. "Shee-...Shieede...?"

Amy pulled the book back to it's place in front of her. "Yea."

"So, what happened to them?"

"Well," Amy continued, "They stayed in what is now Southern Germany for a while acting as mercenaries for the nobility until they were offered a chance to both serve God and defend Europe from further Islamic invasion by the Roman Catholic Church under rule of Otto I The Great. They agreed to be encased in stone and pulled out when they were needed to fight."

"Did it say how?"

She shook her head. "Only that it involved something called 'molten stone.' Whatever that means."

"Molten stone?" Mark raised an eyebrow, "Isn't that just lava?"

A book suddenly fell from nowhere on top of the book in front of them causing Mark and Amy to jump. They hadn't realized Matthew had disappeared at the mention of "molten stone."

"'Molten stone!'" He declared with excitement and he sat back in his chair.

Amy read aloud. "'Molten stone: stone heated into liquid form by the holy light of God.'"

"Well, that's vague." The vampire complained.

"That's horrifying." Amy lamented simultaneously.

"What do you mean?"

"Think about it. They encased a human being in something that is described as 'heated into liquid.'"

Mark realized the implication and winced. "Oh."

"Yea."

"Hmm, I wonder what came first," Matthew pondered, "The knock-out gas or the hot sauce."

Mark hunched his shoulders and let out a moan of imagined pain.

"But it obviously didn't injure them." Stephanie pointed out, "You said that Tyler's physically okay for the most part."

"Yea, aside from his skin-thing, which for all we know could have been a known or intended effect, he's fine." Amy agreed. "Hell, if it weren't for the vandalism in the abbey, we might have a bunch of Visisgoths running around." She suddenly remembered the other thing she wanted to look up. "Oh! Wait. We need to figure out something that may or may not be related."

"Which is?" Matthew was ready to vanish from sight to retrieve more books as Stephanie set about moving some of the unneeded ones from the table to the other.

"Heraldry." She replied. "Specifically: a silver dagger that's on fire."

"Huh." He paused to think a moment then dissolved away.

After a few minutes a large tome dropped on the table followed by a few, much smaller ones. Amy pulled them over to her. The read the cover of the large one."'Compendium of Coat of Arms.'"

Mark grabbed the smaller ones. "'Dictionary of Symbolism: Meanings Behind Religious, Cultural, and Societal Images' and 'Evolution of The Heraldic Crest.'" He looked at Matthew. "You guys have quite the collection here. Something for the whole family."

"It's incredible!" Amy proclaimed. "It's amazing. We don't have a lot of these titles at my library. I've never even heard of some of these before."

"All first edition." A proud smile stretched across Matthew's face". Well, most are more 'single edition,' if you will."

"What, so, these are the only copies?" Mark questioned, "Like, in the world?" Matthew nodded. "Wow."

"The University has the same issue." Amy answered. "You can't exactly walk into McGraw-Hill and say 'Yea, I'd like to re-publish The Munich Manual for the reading pleasure of the public.'"

"Oh, the Miskatonic University." The ghostly librarian rested his chin in his hands with a look on his face that suggested he would trail off into a day dream at any moment. "I've always wanted to go spend a week in Arkham and try to read everything I could in that place. Even before, well," He motioned towards himself, " _This._  Can't exactly go there now."

"If you don't mind me asking." Amy paused a moment to think how to word her question. "When did  _'this,'_ " she motioned toward him similarly to how he had himself, "happen?"

It was considered rude to ask immortal beings or beings who had lived for an extraordinary amount of time-Enduring, as they had come to be known as- exactly how old they were. It was for this reason Amy had not outright asked Mark his age. Historians say it comes from the ancient Draconic traditions. Etiquette specialists say it disrespects the being by questioning the validity of their power and experiences. Instead, much like the humans to the dragons of old, one asked questions to the Immortal or Enduring about their lives; Where they are from, how long have they lived in their current location, what historical events they remember or even took part in. For those whose longevity is something they were naturally born with- for example, fae or nymphs- it's a game of twenty-hundred questions. For immortals whose status as immortal was acquired during life, such as a vampire or ghost, it is easy to cheat with the simple method of asking how and when said status began.

"Oh, I don't mind at all," Matthew was surprising chipper for someone who was talking about their own death. "1923. Slipped off a ladder and broke my neck."

"Oh." Amy wasn't expecting such a blunt response. "I'm so sorry."

"Ah, nuts" He waved off her sympathy with a smile. "It's the best thing that's happened to me in my whole life."

"You don't care that you're bound to this library?" Mark asked. Amy thought she heard the faintest hint of sadness in his voice.

Matthew, however, seemed more than content in the idea. "I was here all the time anyway. I spent most of my life here. After I came home from the war it was nice to sit somewhere calm and quiet and just soak in the knowledge. No bullets whizzing past. No mortars going off. My wife spent her nights at the jazz clubs and the speakeasies, but I spent mine here. Caught a lot of flak for that when I got home, though."

"You were in the first World War?" Amy was shocked. Matthew looked like he wasn't even capable of saying a mean word to someone, never mind fight or kill someone. He looked nothing like a soldier.  _But,_  She thought,  _I suppose that was the point._

"Yea, II Corps of the United States Army." He laughed. "I survived the trenches at the Somme but I couldn't keep my footing on two sticks of wood with rungs between them. But it's not so bad honestly. I've got all the books I could possibly read, I got a job with the DoSS office, and, well, I've met some pretty amazing people in my time here." Amy didn't fail to see Matthew quickly glance over at Stephanie who was still occupied with organizing the books they had used. The sight of her turned his smirk into a full-on smile.

Amy looked at Mark to see if he caught it, too. But he didn't seem as enthused as she was. In fact, he looked almost forlorn; He was slumped back in his chair with his arms crossed. His eyes were downcast and distant. She was going to ask if he was alright, but Stephanie pulling out a chair upon her returning from her task snapped them both out of it.

Another hour or so was spent looking for Silver, Daggers, Fire, or any combination of them used in symbolism through history. They aired their thoughts on their various findings just as they had before.

"The symbolism of a dagger is different than the symbolism of a sword." Stephanie analyzed. "The sword is meant to show military prowess and honor of combat. But a dagger is symbolic of deception and treachery. Fire- be it a tongue of flame or something engulfed- is usually a symbol of zealotry or shameless and fanatic dedication to a something. Dagger and fire don't really seem compatible."

"Silver's got a few." Matthew added. "Representing the moon the way gold represents the sun. It's reflective surface makes people associate it with self-reflection and wisdom-"

"Let's be honest here." Mark's tone was deathly serious. "We all know what silver means in the context of the supernatural."

A pregnant silence fell over the group.

They all knew what silver meant. They all knew what silver was used for. But, no one wanted to be the one to say it.

Matthew broke the silence with a clearing of his throat. "What exactly does this crest have to do with Tyler's case?"

Mark sighed. "When we went to see him, he started freaking out about someone having a sliver dagger engulfed in flame on their cloaks. We think it was whoever broke into the abbey and destroyed the other stone warriors."

"But how would he know that?" Stephanie questioned. "That implies he was aware of what was going on around him. That he was awake inside the stone."

"He wasn't awake...." Amy trailed off. Her eyes widened with realization. "His eyes were open..." She looked at Mark who was looking at her with an expression of stoic shock. He had realized it, too.

"He didn't close his eyes." He muttered.

"What?" Matthew leaned forward. "What are you talking about?"

Amy turned back to him. "Who ever was doing the ritual must have told him to close his eyes. He didn't. He kept them open. That's what he was talking about. He's been staring out into the world for almost eleven hundred years. Which means he watched as someone with flaming, silver daggers on their cloaks broke in and killed his entire clan and tried to kill him, too!" Her speech became more hysterical until her voice finally cracked. She covered her mouth and took a deep breath through her nose. She was on the verge of tears and she didn't know if it was out of horror at the idea of such an existence or out of pity for Tyler and all he'd been through.  _Or maybe both._ She thought.

Everyone else seemed perturbed by the revelation, as well. But for a different reason. Matthew looked over at Stephanie who un-clipped a manila folder from her clipboard and handed it over the pile of books to Mark.

"We assumed your copy of the case file contained the same things as ours." She explained as Mark opened the folder and let in a sharp breath. He quickly closed it and passed it to Amy. She hesitantly took it and looked inside. Immediately, she wished she hadn't.

On the top of the pile of papers and pictures was a photograph of a stone statue. It was some manner of grotesque demon. It's lips furled back in a screech or roar revealing fanged teeth and a forked tongue. Pointed ears protruded from the sides of it's head with ram horns extending from the top of it. It's nose akin to nothing human nor beast but rather a sickening mixture of the two. An eye looking out accusingly from under a dramatically carved brow. But only one eye.

The upper right quadrant of the stone monster's face was gone. The cracks and chips along the edge of the break indicated it was caused by blunt-force trauma but that wasn't what Amy was seeing. She was seeing the man staring out from this fracture with haunting yet familiar glass blue eyes.

It was Tyler as the monks had found him in the chamber beneath the abbey.

But this wasn't the dazed and distant gaze he had in the photo in their file. His eyes showed alertness. Comprehension. Consciousness. The same look he had when he had grabbed Amy. He had been aware of everything around him for a thousand years. Including that he was the last of his kind.

In spite of the fact that she was sitting, Amy suddenly felt dizzy. She closed the file and slammed it down on the table. "I think I'm gonna be sick."

"Okay." Mark stood up and and began closing the books in front of Amy. He placed her notebook and pen back in her bag and handed the folder back to Stephanie. "We've been down here for a really long time. You know what you need?" He paused but no one answered. "Some fresh air. Or at least the freshest you can get in this city." He pulled her up from the chair and made sure she was steady on her feet before handing her bag over. She muttered under her breath that she was fine but Mark continued.

The two librarians stood up and Mark shook their hands as he addressed them "Matthew, Steph, it's been fun. But we should go."

"Thank you for all your help." Amy shook their hands as well.

"Come back anytime you need to." Matthew instructed.

"Or anytime you want to." Stephanie added.

The two made their way toward the door of the research hall when Amy suddenly stopped and turned back around. "Oh, and Matthew." She didn't know what she was going to say to him, but she felt as if she needed to say something.

"Yea?"

Words spilled out of their accord. "When I get back to Arkham, I'm going to talk to the administrator's board to see if we can work out some kind of exchange or lending program for the university library and here."  _Oh, that's actually a pretty good idea._

His face lit up with excitement. "Really?"

"Yea," It was impossible for her to not smile at the sight of how happy he was. "Obviously, there are some books that can't leave the campus for safety reasons-"

"Of course." Both of them knew which ones she meant without having to mention them by name.

"-but I can't see why we couldn't send books back and forth to have them copied for our collections."

"That would be amazing!"

"I'll arrange for the head librarian to contact you." She raised an eyebrow. "And I'll make sure to tell her to ask for Stephanie Cordato."

"Oh where's the fun in that?" He whined.

"Look luck with the rest of the investigation." Stephanie called to them as they exited the room, closing the door behind them.

They walked mostly in silence as they retraced their steps back to Matthew's office, then back to the hall where the help desk was located. They had just past the office when Amy spoke up.

"I'm sorry about...whatever that was." She nervously rubbed the back of her neck. "I don't know where that came from."

"Do you always get that emotional when you finish researching something?" Mark's attempt to lighten the mood didn't seem to work. "Hey, it's alright. You don't have to apologize."

"It's just so..." See struggled to think of a word.

"It's fucked up."

"While not the wording I would have gone with, yes." She agreed. "Sleeping for a thousand years is one thing. Immortals do it all the time. But to be awake and aware. Not even able to close your eyes. And that's not even getting into the ritual itself."

Mark sighed. "And we still didn't prove or disprove any connections."

Amy pinched the bridge of her nose. Stephanie's last word echoing in her head. _Investigation._ "That's right. We're trying to solve a murder case."

"A serial murder case, actually."

She only groaned in response.

"You know what that statue was, right?"

"Hmm?"

"That statue. The statue Tyler was in. You saw what it was meant to look like, right?"

"A gargoyle?"

Mark shrugged. "They typically have wings."

"What, you think his time in the statue turned him into a gargoyle?"

"Think about it."

The silence returned as she did just that. They made it to the front hall of the library's main floor and as Mark put his hat and sunglasses back on, Amy expressed her thoughts.

"Symbolically, gargoyles are protectors of a location. Typically a church or castle or fortress." She mused. "The witness reports state they were being attacked by the victims but whatever or whoever grabbed said victims, saved the witnesses." Mark held open the door for her. "The only thing keeping this theory down is the lack of wings. No pun intended." She began the trek down the steps, not realizing at first that Mark had not followed. She reached the sidewalk, turned to ask his which direction to walk, and looked around frantically upon noticing he was gone.

He was at the top of the steps with a cellphone to his ear and a worried look on his face. He slowly made his way down as he replied one word confirmations to whoever was on the other line. He wrapped up the conversation as he finished the descent down the stairs.

"We're leaving the library now. We'll get over there as fast we can." He ended the call and turned to Amy. "That was the DoSS office. We need to get back to St. Peter's."

"What? Why?" His tone set her into full panic mode. "What happened?"

"Apparently, Tyler's acting up. And if the Monsignor called the DoSS, it's getting bad." He waved for her to follow her. "Come on."

The sick feeling in the pit of Amy's stomach returned and she ran after Mark, silently praying that everything was alright.


	4. They That Mourn

 

They had gotten a few blocks away from the library when Mark opened the door of an idle cab and pushed Amy in. The driver began to object, saying that he was instructed to wait by someone in one of the nearby hotels, but when Mark produced two crisp hundred dollar bills, he seemed more inclined to abandon the would-be passenger. They arrived at St. Peter's where Sister Patrick was pacing in the cathedral waiting for them, her previously cheery demeanor now one of urgency and worry. She hurried them along through the same route of hallways and rooms they had taken this morning as she explained what was happening. 

"He was the same as he normally was after you left." She told them, "But then a little while later he seemed to be in pain. Like he had some kind of headache. But when we approached him, he began shouting at us to get away from him. Then, that turned into him demanding to speak to you again, Miss Nelson."

"Me?" The offending researcher questioned. "What-why me?"

"I supposed he feels more comfortable talking to you. We called the Department and asked if it were possible to get you both back here. But between then an now he's gotten more hostile. We just don't want him to hurt himself or anyone else." 

 They ran through the courtyard, into the small gray house, and up the two staircases. The turned the corner into the hallway that was filled with priests and nuns, just in time to see a chair fly from the doorway that was their destination and smash to pieces against the wall across from it. The crowd gasped and backed away from the door, one sister let out a scream from the shock and another nearly fainted, but it seemed no one was injured. 

 "Monsignor Donovan?" Mark called out over the chatter of the assembled clergy as he and Amy squeezed through them trying to get to the front. The Monsignor was exiting the room when the two finally made it. He was visibly shaken, but seemingly unharmed. He held up his hands to stop them from going any further. 

 "Everyone, please," He addressed the crowd, "go back to your quarters. We don't want anyone getting hurt." He lowered his voice and whispered to Amy and Mark directly. "He's gotten worse since we called. He's destroyed half the furniture in his room."

"Sister Patrick said he wanted to talk to me." Amy insisted.

"I won't let you in there now. He's gone mad. We need to call the department again and have them send someone who can restrain him." He began to shepherd them back. "Come on, now."

But Amy wasn't having it. 

 She ducked under the Monsignor's arm and darted past him into the room. 

 "Amy!" She heard Mark cry after her. 

 She almost tripped- the shifting weight of her bag falling from her arm had thrown her off- but managed to catch her balance by grabbing the door frame. When she stepped into the room she saw Tyler, hunched over on the floor at the far wall, between the half of the desk that remained and the splintered wood and torn sheets that used to be his bed. He was trembling, his shirt and hair were matted to his skin from sweat, and Amy could see blood trickling down his face from his temple. 

 "Tyler?" She softly announced her presence. He snapped his head a quarter of the way to her direction. He wasn't looking at anything in particular, but rather hyper-focused on everything and nothing at once. "It's me, Amy." 

"Amicus..." He replied shakily.

"That's right." She took a cautionary step towards him. "I'm here to help you." She said these words, but deep in her mind, she had no idea how she could. She attempted another step but this caused him to recoil, bringing his arm up as if he was afraid of being struck. She took a smaller step back and he seemed to relax a bit more. But not by much. 

 "...Close...Eyes." He muttered.

"I know, Tyler," She slowly began to lower herself, making any attempt to seem less like a threat to him. "They told you to close your eyes." 

"...Did not..." He continued.

"But you kept your eyes open." She was now squatting with her arms wrapped around her knees. "Tyler, I need you to tell me what happened after that."

He was silent for a moment. " _Pater...Tius..._ "

Amy furrowed her brow. It was obvious who ' _pater_ ' was supposed to be, though Amy had not thought about Tyler's father being in one of the statues, but who was  _Tius_?

" _Tius?_ " She asked, staring at his facing looking for any kind of reaction. 

Nothing.

She remembered the conversion from earlier today. Monsignor Donovan had told them he responded to the name 'Tyler' and Amy had deduced that it may have been because it sounded similar to his real name. Was Tyler actually  _'Tius'_?

"Who is  _Tius_?" She asked first in English and again in Latin when there was no response. " _Quis est Tius?_ "

He winced. He brought his hands up to his temples, grabbing fistfuls of his hair as he had done before. Amy saw the stone layer on his skin had gotten worse. It had been only in small sections this morning, but now it had covered the length and circumference of his forearms and biceps only breaking a bit above and below his elbow. 

" _Tius..._ " He groaned. He was in pain again, but Amy knew that if she wanted to help him, she would have to keep pushing him.

" _Quis est Tius?_ " She asked again with a bit more force in her voice. 

The groaning grew louder and harsher. He dragged his hands to cover his face, pulling out locks of hair with the motion. Amy watched as the skin on the back of his hands seemed to constrict and shrink in on itself. It hardened and the white of Tyler's skin darkened into a pale gray. It didn't stop there. Tyler seemed to feel it and pulled his hands away from his face to watch in horror as the stone grew over his knuckles and up the length of each individual digit, culminating at his fingertip forming into grotesque claw-like shapes.

The sight almost made Amy sick, but she pressed on. " _Tius tibi nomen est?_ " 

Tyler let out a howl of pain and rage. He grabbed the desk, the wood cracking and chipping in his grip. Amy stumbled back onto her feet. She backed up until she hit the wall, silently cursing to herself for not better lining up with the door.

"Tyler," She cautioned him. "Don't-" 

But it was too late. Tyler had thrown the piece of furniture at her at top speed. Amy closed her eyes and braced herself. She felt something large slam into her, sending her and it crashing against the wall. She heard the wood splinter and the people in the hallway scream. There was silence for a moment where even Tyler seemed to have been stunned by his own actions. She let out a shaky breath, trying to figure out if the reason she couldn't feel any pain was because of death or adrenaline. She was stuck between two solid objects so the something had definitely hit her. She gathered the courage to open her eyes and saw that the object that had crashed into her wasn't the busted desk, but Mark. He had her pinned against the wall, one hand cradling her head against the cream-colored plaster and the other braced against it, acting like a barrier between her and the crazed Visigoth. They were pressed in the corner of the room, a few feet away, the shattered wooden remains that lay scattered opposite of where Tyler was now hyperventilating and talking to no one.

" _Pater_!" He cried out, tears streaming down his cheeks mixing with the blood and dirt on his face. " _Tius! Surgit! Quaeso, excitare! Quaeso!_ _Tu pugnare necesse est!_ "

"What is he saying?" Mark asked Amy though he glared over his shoulder, not taking his eyes off the hysterical man. She couldn't see his face, but the tone of his indicated that he was in pain. Had the desk hit him? 

 Amy didn't answer at first. Instead, she listened a bit longer. Her heart breaking more and more with each name he shouted. He cried out for his fellow warriors to arise and defend themselves, reminding them of their loved ones and why they had chosen this deal and she found herself once more on the verge of tears. There had been people in those statues. Human beings. Fathers, brothers, uncles, sons. They had a culture and a way of life. They had families, they had friends, they had something they felt was worth being encased in stone for and they had lost all of it in vain. The only one left being this waling, broken husk of a man that was probably once a great warrior. Had they been aware as Tyler had been? Were their last moments spend silently screaming as their brethren were slaughtered in front of them?

The reports had said "vandalized." But the people with silver daggers engulfed in flames on their cloaks had not committed an act of vandalism; they had committed genocide.

"He's calling out to his father and tribesmen." She finally answered. "He's begging them to wake up and fight."

Tyler dropped to the floor with his stone-claws digging into the wood. His screams of anguish toward his fallen clan had deteriorated into screams of pure pain. He clutched his head, causing blood to steadily drip down his stone covered arms and slowly pool underneath him. 

Then, it happened.

He suddenly arched his back, the abrupt motion making him drag his clawed hands down leaving cuts from the top of his head to just above his forehead. He fell forward again and Amy gasped and Mark's grip on her instinctively tightened at what they saw. Something underneath his shirt was moving. It was barely noticeable at first but then it grew, upwards and outwards from his shoulder blades until finally the sweat soaked t-shirt was torn off by the size of two stone appendages. They continued to grow larger spanning nearly the length and height of the room itself while Tyler continued to howl in pain. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, both the growing and the screaming had stopped and through the stunned horror Amy and Mark were able to see what these new limbs were. 

"Wings." Amy managed to gasp out.

"Connection number four." Mark whispered. 

The room went silent. Even the congregation in the hallway yielded no chatter or murmurs. The only sound was Tyler's slow but uneven breathing. He was either no longer in pain or simply just too exhausted to express it. 

 After a few minutes, in spite of Mark's objections, Amy broke away from his hold and tentatively approached the broken man. Stepping around the wings, she took the opportunity to look them over. They were nothing short of amazing. They resembled bat wings from the overall shape to the claw at their peak to the bones and veins running along them. It was as if someone meticulously carved every little detail into living rock. They were even moving. With each breath that Tyler took, the wings twitched or swayed, scraping against the floor or wall. 

"Tyler?" Amy called out. There was no response. She knelt down in front of him. His eyes were unfocused and empty and blood dripped down from his head and down his face. The front half of his shirt barely remained on his body with just the collar holding most of it up, and the sleeves sagged around his elbows exposing the rocked encrusted skin. The stone had crept up his neck and now lingered along his jawline with some beginning to form over the bridge of his nose to under his eyes. Amy picked up a scrap of the shirt that lay on the ground and began gently wiping away the blood and sweat on his brow. The scrap quickly became soaked, so she placed it on the ground and grabbed another one. She cupped her hand under his jaw and gingerly moved his head around to better reach the different parts of his face. She felt the stone shift under her touch.

"We were supposed to wake up together." He whispered, focusing his eyes to look at Amy. "All of us."

She put the scrap piece down and began looking for another, only to look back up at Tyler upon feeling his hand cover hers. There were tears welling up in his eyes again.

"I know, Tyler." She whispered. She wanted to say something, offer up anything. An explanation or any words of sympathy. But there was nothing she could give. All she could do was sit and feel her heart break for this pitiful creature in front of her. 

"We were supposed to go as one into eternity," he continued, "for glory and for God."

"I know."

"But I was the only one to awaken." He looked into Amy's eyes, lips quivering as he struggled to stay composed. "Why was I the only one? Why...why not....?" Finally, he broke down into sobs, burying his face into Amy's shoulder.

She did her best to comfort him. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and stroked his tangled curls while softly assuring him that everything was going to be okay. 

The stone skin and the wings began to crumble. Small chips gave way to large cracks and soon the limbs fell away with the loud clacking and popping of stone on stone, until finally Tyler resembled a human again.

Amy looked over at Mark. He was leaning back against the corner facing the two of them and cradling his right arm, but his head was turned toward the door where two suited men were standing half in the hallway. The taller of the two was bearded with his sandy brown hair slicked back, the shorter wore thick-rimmed black glasses and had shaggy black hair. 

 The taller one looked at Mark. "Mr. Fischbach," Then, at Amy. "And you must be Ms. Nelson?"

Amy didn't answer, but as the men approached her, she suddenly found herself growing protective over the man crying on her shoulder. Both men reached into their jackets and flashed badges clearly modeled off the New York Police Department badges but instead read Department of Specialized Services. 

"My name is Rhett McLaughlin," The taller one introduced himself, "and this is my partner Charles Neal..."

* * * 

As the commotion with Tyler had been going on, Monsignor Donovan called the DoSS office again. They sent over two agents to 'subdue' Tyler but upon interviewing Mark, Amy, and the clergy of St. Peter's, took him into Department custody as the murderer they had been looking for.

In essence, they had arrested him. 

After some assurance from Amy, Tyler wordlessly agreed to listen to the agents and stay calm. He allowed himself to be handcuffed and put into the back of a black car with tinted windows and department plates.

Detective McLaughlin informed Amy and Mark that there was a good chance they'd be called to the DoSS office in the following days and as Amy brushed her teeth to get ready for bed that night, she wondered if the stone warrior was being treated well. Where were the keeping him? In a holding cell? Had they given him new clean clothes to wear? Had he eaten anything? 

She stood in her pajamas at the sink of the dingy bathroom next to Mark's room. Though, they had gotten home after the sun had set, he had offered to take her down to the laundry room to take care of her bloodied clothes. But, she was far too tired and drained to do anything about them.

She finished up, spitting mouthwash into the sink and dabbing at her mouth with a towel. Opening the bathroom door, she saw that Mark's door was open and the light was on. He was sitting on his bed, laptop in front of him and their copy of the case file open next to him. He hadn't noticed that she was standing there, so she silently observed for a while. He seemed to have changed into pajamas as well, the hoodie and jeans were haphazardly thrown onto the floor in exchange for black sweatpants and a white tank top with red and black stripes that showed off his previously unseen brawn. As if on cue, he stretched out one of his arms with a low groan escaping from his throat. He brought his other arm around to massage his shoulder blade, displaying all manner of rippling, cord-like muscles. Amy hadn't realized she'd been staring until Mark snapped her out of it. 

"Hey," He spoke up, "Everything okay?"

"Oh, um," She fidgeted with the hem of her over sized t-shirt, "I just wanted to see how you were holding up." 

He rubbed his shoulder again, unwittingly putting on another show. "Yeah, I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?"

Amy crossed her arms and leaned against the door frame. "The desk?" 

"Oh, yea. That." He trailed off, returning to the computer in front of him and continuing to type. A none-too-subtle refusal to answer.

"Okay," Amy changed the subject. "I have another question for you."

"Hmm?"

"Did you let me stay here," She began, "because you knew I was Franklin Elwood's great-granddaughter?"

He stopped typing, but didn't look up. "He had mentioned something about his granddaughter marrying a 'Nelson,' so I figured there was a chance, but-"

"So, you  _did_  know him." 

"Did you?" He finally looked over at her.  _Again, not answering._

"I was little when he passed away. I don't really remember much of him." She let out a chuckle. "I only remember that he had a lot of cats."

"Do you know what had happened?"

"Yea, but he didn't tell me. Apparently, he didn't like telling people. Can't really blame him. I learned the story from my grandfather's journals." 

"Walter."

She tilted her head. "So,  _he's_  the one you knew?"

He hesitated. "I had met him once or twice. In the 80s, before-" He stopped himself short with a sharp intake of breath. "Sorry."

"It's fine." She assured him, "I knew what you meant." 

There was a long, uncomfortable silence. The only noise being the buzzing of Mark's laptop.

"Thank you," Amy spoke up, "For essentially saving my life today. And regardless of whatever reason you had for letting me stay here, I really do appreciate it." 

He looked up at her again with a soft smile. "Don't mention it."

She pushed herself off the frame and began sauntering down the hall, yelling over her shoulder. "Betcha didn't expect to be stuck with me for God only knows how long!" 

"It's alright," He shouted back, "I'll just serial kill you if I get sick of you."

"Goodnight!" 

Mark looked down at the screen in front of him. He closed the laptop after a while, deciding to finish the work later. He placed it on the bedside table with the closed file on top of it, then walked around his bed to the doorway. He saw the light projected on the wall from Amy's room disappear as she closed her door and he let out a quiet sigh as he closed his. 


	5. Consider The Lily

The sunlight beaming through the small gap in the curtains wasn't enough to wake Amy up. But her phone buzzing gently roused her awake and the dull throbbing in all her limbs when she went to turn her alarm off snapped her into full awareness. She let out a pained groan as the events of her first day in New York came flooding back. The church, the library, the church again. There had been a lot more walking, running, and being manhandled by supernatural beings than she was used to in her normal day.

She sat up, moaning the whole way up. She got out of bed and rummaged through the suitcase still at the foot of her bed. She considered neatening it up the night before, but was too mentally drained to do it. She put on a pair of socks and ran a brush through her hair, then walked into the hallway. On her way to the bathroom, she noticed Mark's door was open, but he wasn't in there.

After washing her face and doing her morning routine- during which she noticed there were several more rolls of toilet paper than she would think necessary for a vampire- she walked downstairs and noticed said vampire in the kitchen.

Mark was just throwing an empty plastic bag into the trash and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, stopping mid-swipe when he saw Amy at the stairs.

"Good morning." He mumbled, not wanting her to see the red still lingering on his lips and teeth. He shuffled to the counter and grabbed a paper towel from the roll to finish the job, throwing it into the bin when he was done.

"Good morning." Amy walked to the island, and leaned over it resting on her elbows. "Any updates on our friend?"

"Nothing." He said retrieving a mug from one of the cabinets. "I think it might be a few days." He grabbed the pot from the coffee maker. "You drink coffee?"

"Dude, I bleed coffee."

He chuckled and poured the drink into the cup. He slid it over to her, then turned back around to dig through some jars on the counter top and threw her some sugar packets.

Amy caught sight of a small red smear on the back of his hand. "Missed a spot."

"Wha-?" He looked down at it, "Oh, shit." He walked to the sink and began washing his hands, actually using soap this time. "Uh, there should be some milk or coffee creamer in the fridge. Don't know if it's any good or not."

She opened the fridge and raised an eyebrow at its contents.

Blood packs.

So many blood packs.

The shelves were lined with them. The drawers labeled 'MEAT' and 'VEGETABLES' were filled with them. There were even a few in the egg tray. There were other things, too. A small carton of milk, a jug of water, a few beers, a half a bottle of soda. But for the most part, it was blood packs. _I can only imagine what the freezer looks like._

Amy grabbed the milk carton and checked the date. It expired the day before yesterday, but when she opened it and took a few sniffs of it, she decided it was fine and poured some in her mug, placing it back when she was done. She added some sugar and swirled the cup around, being too tired to look for silverware and sat at the table.

"So, as you can see," Mark began as he sat down in the chair next to her, "I have very little by way of food-" He furrowed his brow as he looked at her drink. "That milk wasn't spoiled?"

Amy only shrugged and took a sip.

"That's disgusting." He moved on, "Anyway, there's no shortage of food in this city so we can pick up something on the way."

"Way to where?"

"We don't know how long the DoSS is gonna take on this case." He mumbled a quick aside, "They are a government entity after all." He cleared his throat, "So, if you're gonna be here for God only knows, you should get acquainted with a few of the people here."

"You trying to set me up to ask a librarian about a ghost again?"

"That wasn't on purpose!" He dramatically held a finger up, "But you have to admit it was funny."

Amy didn't look amused. It was funny. But she didn't have to admit anything.

"Speaking of librarian," she said, "we should contact Matthew and Stephanie and tell them how everything went. Matthew will be disappointed to learn that Tyler wasn't a jumper."

"Are you kidding? They work for the department, they'll probably know before we do."

Amy cocked her head a bit. "I'm sensing some hostility towards the DoSS..."

"Yea, well," he sneered as he trailed off. He clearly had more to say, but wanted to avoid getting heated up.

"McLaughlin and Neal were DoSS agents, as well, but they work for the department itself, right? What's the difference between that and a freelance?"

Mark crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. "Well, when doing things legally, there's a lot of red tape to work around and hoops to jump through. If someone forgets to dot their I's and cross their T's the whole damn department is thrown into chaos. So, they call people in who can operate outside of that red tape and, ya know, actually get some work done."

"How so?"

"By acting as a civilian. For instance, a few years ago, there was a suspected unregistered blood mage operating in Midtown. To search his apartment they would have needed a warrant or just cause to do so."

"But they didn't?"

"Nope and in the time it would have taken to get a warrant, he would have cut and ran. So, when the guy went grocery shopping, I broke into his apartment and ransacked the place and sure enough there was a blood ritual alter set up in the bedroom closet. I called it in and the police were there to greet him when he got home." Mark seemed very proud of himself.

"And everyone was just okay with you trashing this guys house?"

"No, actually. I, uh," He bit his lip, "I got arrested for breaking and entering." He gave a sheepish smile.

"...Oh."

"Yeah."

"Isn't that a 10 year sentence in New York?"

"Seven." He said in a matter-of-fact tone. "But I made a few deals and got off with a $5,000 fine and a year in Sing Sing. After that, a shit-ton of community service."

Amy jokingly raised an eyebrow. "Did you join a prison gang?"

"No, but I got really good at folding clothes."

Amy laughed which made Mark smile. "Do you at least get a cool badge like McLaughlin or Neal?"

Mark shifted to reach into his back pocket, pulled out a worn leather wallet, and passed it to Amy. It was a billfold, opening to a cutout that held the badge in place and a clear plastic pocket for a department ID card. The badge itself was identical to the other agents' except for one detail: Where the banner at the bottom of their badge had said 'Detective,' Mark's had the smaller word 'Private' over it. She ran her thumb over the New York seal in the center.

" _Sigillum Civitatis Novi Eboracum._ " She read aloud. "'The Seal of the City of New York.'"

"There's a Latin word for New York?"

"When the Romans founded York in 70AD they called it _Eboracum_." She explained, "It means something along the lines of 'place of yew trees.'" She looked up at the ID. It didn't have a date issued, but the picture was obviously on the older side. At least ten years.

"But, yea. I get more freedom, but less protection." He shrugged, "and I'm fine with that, honestly. Plus, their badges are silver-cored and that obviously wouldn't work out too well for me."

"They don't have special badges for their supernatural agents?"

"They do. Really nice ones, actually." He held his hand out, "But, with how they treat the freelance agents, I'd be lucky if that crap is real metal."

Amy placed the wallet in his palm and got up to put her mug in the sink. She turned back around just in time to see Mark- sitting at the table with his back to her- lift up one of the sleeves of his t-shirt and rub a large blackened bruise on his left shoulder. The effect of Tyler fast-balling a desk at him. Or rather- at her.  _Why hasn't that healed by now? Why did it bruise at all?_  She thought. Normally, any damaged sustained by vampire individuals that wasn't an outright loss of limb or immolation was rarely permanent or even semi-permanent, with their injuries usually healing after their next sleep or intake of blood.  _Did he not drink enough blood? Or did the thing hit him_ that _hard?_

She shook the thought from her head. "So, where are we going to meet these friends of yours? Hopefully some place with less running like hell and furniture being lobbed at us." She noticed that Mark quickly replaced his sleeve when she had started talking.

"Yea, sure. Us." He quipped as he stood up. "No, not today unfortunately. Today is gonna be a walk in the park. Literally."

"Oh, how romantic of you, Mr. Fischbach." Amy dramatically touched the back of her hand to her forehead and fluttered her eyelashes as she made her way over to the stairs.

"Maybe throwing furniture isn't such a bad idea." He sassed.

Amy mockingly scoffed. She climbed up the stairs and walked into her room to get ready.

* * *

There had to be hundreds of cafes and coffee shops in New York City. There was one on every street and yet they were still packed with people trying to push past each other for their morning cup of Joe. Mark was content to sit outside while Amy entered the fray, it was probably 15 minutes before she emerged with a toasted bagel and Styrofoam cup. The vampire teased her for the second cup of coffee. They walked along the streets, navigating crossing signals and and crossing guards. Walking under construction scaffolding and around precariously open man-holes that spewed foul smelling steam and food trucks and carts that all looked the same but all advertised having the best X in Manhattan. At one point Mark had to, once again, grab Amy by the back of the shirt and pull her out from in front of a car, but other than that, the trek went without issue and as they passed the rows of luxury townhouses and fancy apartments, the treeline of Central Park came into view.

Even from the small portion of the park she saw from the entrance, Amy could tell it was huge. The trees grew and formed a canopy over the roads and walkways, and groups of kids and adults alike climbed on rocky outcroppings that could only be described as small mountains. The small rail that separated the asphalt pathway had seats to act as one long park bench and on it sat a all variations of people. Another groups of kids ran around trying to catch and pop the large bubbles a man was creating by dipping a circle of rope in a bucket of soap and spreading it into a circle in the air with two sticks, allowing the wind to create giant orbs of swirling colors. There were more food carts selling the same things as the others- hot dogs, pretzels, churros- and as they walked through, they passed a stage under a domed structure where a group of Asian men and women were being led in song by a black woman with a soulful voice playing  _Light of the World_  on a keyboard. There was large crowd of people stopped to listen but Amy could just make out a sign near the stage reading "Harlem Japanese Gospel Choir" a series of words that, for some reason, amused her to no end.

"I didn't know Harlem had a Japanese gospel choir." She mused.

"Oh yea," Mark said "they've got a Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and even a Tibetan choir."

She thought a moment. "I wonder if the Tibetan and Chinese choirs have some kind of rivalry going on."

Mark suddenly snorted and began giggling. "I could just imagine: They accidentally schedule practice at the same place for the same day and they both show up to the studio and just stare at each other."

"Maybe they have a guy who tries to make them get along."

"Their own Dalai Lama?"

"Like," she thought for a moment, "a Dalai Soprano."

They both laughed.

They crossed another small street after waiting for some horses and buggies to pass. Across the road was a tiled area with a long stairway going down into an underpass. Mark led them down the steps into the tunnel where it widened on both sides held up with carved arches. Light from both sides of the tunnel shone enough that Amy was able to admire the intricate tile work on the floors, walls, and ceilings. Another choir was down here taking advantage of the acoustics, singing _Amazing Grace_  near a small table piled high with CD cases.

The tunnel opened out to a massive terrace with an enormous fountain in the center. Atop it was an angel standing on a platform over a small group of childlike cherubs and the water was dotted with waterlilies and flowers. Beyond it, a lake where small rowboats drifted to and fro. The area was packed with people. Many were obvious tourists, others were city natives trying to take in a bit of nature. There were even more performers here: Another man blowing big bubbles, a man playing an accordion while sitting on the edge of the fountain, and near one of the stair cases were two gentlemen enacting some old Abbot and Costello skit using modern slang.

Mark, however, continued to lead them away from all this and toward the grass and trees. He stepped over the stone bench that looped around the perimeter of the terrace then turned around to help Amy it, being careful not to step on any of the flowers that grew there. Amy was about to ask where they were headed when something caught her eye.

In one of the trees there was a man lounging on a low hanging branch. One leg was dangling down and swaying back and forth and his back was against the trunk of the tree and although he was facing away from them, they could hear his soft singing as they approached quietly.

_"...And that was the end of sweet Molly Malone..."_

Mark looked at Amy and motioned her to be silent with a finger to his lips. She stopped where she was and wondered what he was going to do.

_"...But her ghost wheels her barrow..."_

The vampire stealthily ducked under the branch and slowly reached his hands toward the man's swinging foot.

_"...Through streets broad and narrow..._

_...Crying, 'cockles and mussels, alive, alive-'_  AGH!"

Mark had grabbed the man's ankle and yanked him down, sending him toppling out of the tree and face first into the grass. His glasses landed next to him and as he pushed himself off the ground, his knitted beanie slipped off his head revealing bright green hair and pointed ears.

"What the f-" He scrambled to his feet, cursing in a thick Irish accent and ready to confront the person responsible, until he saw Mark doubled over in deep, bellowing laughter, "Mark?! You fucking bastard!" Despite the insults, the man was clearly overjoyed to see him.

Mark regained his composure. "Hey, Seán."

"I haven't seen you in ages." Seán gave him a warm hug, "How're ya?"

"Ya know, just been busy with department stuff." He pulled away from the green man but kept a hand on his shoulder. "How've you been?"

Seán quickly picked up his effects, putting on his glasses first than his hat, making sure it covered his ears. "Pretty good. Workin' the pub, screwin' with Felix at work, hangin' around here." He suddenly noticed Amy standing there. She wasn't looking at him, but at the place he fell and the small patches of flowers and taller grass that had suddenly grown. He looked with a mixture of concern and curiosity at Mark, who simply smiled and shook his head.

"Seán, this is Amy Nelson." She snapped her attention to him at the sound of her name.

"Oh, hello." She held out her hand, which he took and gave a firm shake.

"Seán McLoughlin. You're from the University, aren't you?"

She smiled. "Why, yes, I am. Head researcher."

"She was asked by the department to help with a case," Mark explained, "And she did. But now she's stuck here until the paperwork is done."

Seán winced and sucked his teeth. "Oh, you're gonna be here a while then."

"Oh yea. So, I'm showing her around Manhattan."

"And the first person you thought to introduce her to was me?" Seán mocked wiping a tear from his eye. "I'm so honored."

"It's more of a test really." He motioned toward the girl, who had stepped away from the two to examine the flowers near where Seán had hit the ground. She plucked one and looked closely. It was small yellow flower with eight broad petals sprouting from a dark gold center. They grew in little bunches together and already attracting bees and other insects. She sniffed it a few times before turning back to the two men.

"Wait for it..." Mark muttered.

"Lance-leaved coreopis." She declared.

"Of course, she knows plants." He's words seemed sarcastic, but he was genuinely impressed.

Amy continued. "It's a type of Tickseed in the Asteraceae family."

"The what family?" Seán interrupted.

"The sunflower family. But they weren't growing here before. The tree provides too much shade. And this grass is obviously maintained meticulously so they wouldn't be able to bloom before being cut. They only appeared when you fell. But more specifically where your face and hands touched the ground." She looked up at the green-haired man with an eyebrow raised. "Are you a nature spirit?"

Seán's answer was to look at Mark with a puzzled expression and Mark's answer to that was hold his hands up defensively.

"Don't look at me I didn't tell her anything." He mumbled.

He looked back at Amy. "You figured that out by looking at some flowers?"

"Well, that and your ears." She suddenly realized how her question had sounded. "Sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"Oh, you're good." He smirked. He looked back at Mark. "She's good."

"I know, right?" He chuckled. "She figured out the whole vampire thing with just one look."

She put a hand on her hip. "And it was a good thing I did because no one told me and I doubt you were gonna say anything."

"I would have said something," Mark stifled a laugh, "eventually. But, yea, Sean's a plant fairy."

"Fae, Mark. Fae." Seán corrected with an eye roll. "Not the same thing."

"Of course they're the same thing." He continued to tease.

"All fairies are fae but not all fae are fairies." Clearly, this was a frequent discussion between these two.

"Whatever, just show her the feet thing."

"The what?" Amy was all of a sudden very concerned.

Seán seemed more offended at that suggestion then at the 'fairy' remark. "What? No." He looked around frantically. "There's people here."

"Do it!"

Seán rolled his eyes again and sat down in the grass. He took off his shoes and stuffed his socks into them after removing those as well. He stood up and appeared more annoyed than distraught at the plants and flowers that were sprouting from around his bare feet. Flowers of white and yellow and purple and even an ivy vine began to creep up his leg. Amy gasped in excitement and Mark giggled at Seán's badgered expression.

"This is degrading." Seán whined. "I feel objectified."

"Oh, quit your complaining."

Seán sat to put his socks and shoes back on. Amy knelt to inspect the freshly grown plants.

"Pale coneflower. Wild columbine. Bloodroot." She listed them off as she saw them. "They're all native to this area. So, you don't create plants, you just cause them to grow naturally, but faster and regardless of light or moisture levels."

"Basically." Seán nodded.

"That's amazing!"

He shot a smug grin at Mark, who rolled his eyes.

"Speaking of degrading," The vampire said, "Where  _is_  Felix working today?"

"Uh," The fae scratched his beard, "Times Square, I think?"

"Cart or no?"

"Not sure."

"Eh, let's go hassle him anyway." He waved for the two to follow him with a mischievous grin. They followed, Seán looking eager to join in whatever high jinks Mark had planned for them and Amy wondering what the poor groundskeeper was going to think upon seeing the out-of-place patch of overgrown flora amongst the well-tended grass.  


	6. Eat, Drink, and Be Merry

 The vampire, the fae, and the human made their way down to the tourist hot spot of the city that was Times Square. Amy almost lost the two men once or twice, but managed to find them again from the combination of Mark's hood and the pompom on Seán's hat. The walk wasn't that far, but they needed to make their way back out of the park, then down the length of it. Amy had been right; Central Park was enormous.

Finally, they broke free of the it's perimeter and after a few more blocks, had made it to the famed Square. It looked as picturesque and unreal as it did in the media

Mark and Seán continued at their normal pace toward the center of the square, but Amy stopped and looked up at the beautiful chaos around her. Even in the middle of the day, the LCD screens and banners light up the sky with flashing colors and eye catching designs. Advertisements for plays and musicals, movies and television shows next to the signs for the stores and restaurants that lined the streets. At ground level, things were just as crazy. A line of a few cars drove down one side of the square and on the other side, people walked to and fro pushing baby carriages and swinging shopping bags. There was an area full of small red tables with little red chairs around them and near it was an area where costume characters posed for and demanded money from tourists. She was so enchanted by the city sights and only snapped out of it when she backed up into someone.

She turned around to apologize only to be met with Mark's smug grin. "Are you lost, miss?" He chuckled.

"Oh, yes. It appears my tour guide has abandoned me."

"The nerve of some people." He glanced up at the screens before looking back at Amy, "If you think it's cool now, I'll have to take you to see it at night. It's like the sun never sets here."

"First Central Park and now Times Square?" Amy jokingly put a hand to her chest and fluttered her eyelashes, "Mr. Fischbach, you certainly know how to impress a lady."

"Shut up." He laughed. "Come on." He motioned for her follow him to a mass of gathered people. He pushed past them all and stood next to Seán, watching the hyperactive man the group was circling. He was blonde with a full, brown beard and dressed in ripped jeans and a purple hoodie, telling jokes while switching back and forth to a normal but accented voice and a dramatic raspy one. Occasionally, he stopped speaking only to begin shouting and, along with a punchline, he would use a plastic water bottle to splash his face with water making the crowd laugh.

As they watched him, Amy leaned over quietly spoke to Mark. "Friend of yours?"

"His name's Felix Kjellberg." He answered.

"Is he a supernatural as well?" Mark nodded. "But you aren't going to tell me what he is, are you?" Mark smirked and shook his head.

"Now, I'm gonna need some help with this one." The man announced, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out what appeared to be a deck of cards. Multiple people began raising their hands and even volunteering people next to them. He zeroed in on a woman whose young children were shouting and pointing to her. He held out a hand toward her, "Ma'am, would you please help me out?"

Despite the woman's protests, she laughed and took the man's hand, allowing herself to be led into the center of the crowd.

"And what is your name, miss?" He asked.

"Desiree." She answered.

"Everyone give a round of applause for Desiree!" He addressed the crowd and they all cheered, the group of people that were with her whooping and whistling. The man turned back to speak to her, but loud enough so most of the crowd could hear him. "Now, Desiree," he handed her the deck, "look through these cards. Do you see anything out of the ordinary? Any doubles or missing cards?" She took a moment to skim the cards and, when she found everything on the straight and narrow, she shook her head.

"What was that?" Felix asked, putting a hand on her shoulder and bending slighting to be closer.

"Looks like a deck of cards." She answered.

"Once more so everyone- even the really short people in the back can hear you." He said, waving a hand dramatically in the general direction of the crowd.

Desiree looked at the people and shrugged, "Just a normal deck of cards."

A card trick? Amy mused. Could he be a conjurer?

"Very good, very good. I'll be taking these, Thank you." He gingerly took the deck from her hand and fanned them out in his own. "And just to show everyone that you're not lying-" He looked at her with a cocked eyebrow, "You wouldn't lie to all these lovely people, would you, Desiree?" She laughed and shook her head. "I didn't think you would, but just to be certain, I'm gonna show this completely normal, nothing out of the ordinary deck to all the folks here today."

He shuffled along the circle holding the fanned-out cards in front of him at arms length in both hands. When he got to where the vampire, fae, and researcher were standing, however, Amy was only able to see the cards for a split second- and that it was indeed a complete and unaltered deck- before the performer scoffed, "Oh, you f-!" and flipped the two men off with a smug grin. Mark and Seán each responded with both middle fingers as he passed. The crowd laughed and cheered and as Felix finished his route he returned to his place next to the giggling woman, pointing at them. "Those two!" He jeered. "'A Korean and an Irishman walk into a bar'? Sounds like a funny joke, yea? Nope! Not funny at all!"

"You're not even Swedish!" Seán heckled.

"Go back to Finland!" Mark joined.

Felix answered with another quick flash of the bird, before turning back to the woman. "Please excuse the rabble." He placed a hand on her shoulder again, "Now, Desiree, I need one more thing from you..." He trailed off, looking her intently in her face as he leaned in ever-so-slightly.

He let the silence hang in the air for a minute or two, letting the laughs rise from both the crowd and Desiree herself. She covered her mouth to try and stifle it, only to look back up at the man and burst out into hysterical cackles.

Finally, Felix spoke up again. "First, I need you to get your mind out of the gutter." She continued to laugh. "That show's later and it costs more- Now," He interrupted himself but stopped to wait for the laughter to fade. He held out his other hand with the deck laying face-down in his palm. "I need you to put your hand on my deck-" He was cut off by laughter from the crowd. "What? What's so funny? I just need you to touch my deck-" More laughter. "There is nothing funny about asking a pretty lady you met out on the street to wrap her hands around your deck. Now quiet, this is a delicate process." Desiree placed her palm over the cards and Felix placed his hand over hers. "Now, Desiree, let's get to know a bit about each other."

"Psychic?" Amy whispered to Mark. He only smirked.

Felix continued. "What is your favorite suite in a deck of cards?"

Desiree paused a moment. "The clover."

"Clover? You mean the clubs?"

"Yea."

"Clubs?!" Felix began shouting in a scolding tone. "Not hearts, not spades, not even diamonds? I thought diamonds were a girl's best friend? And you just pass them over for some clubs?"

It seems that the woman couldn't help but laugh at the sudden outburst and between breathes tried to explain. "Ya see, I got three kids-" She motioned with her other hand toward the rowdy children that had volunteered her to begin with.

"No, no, no!" Felix cut her off. "Too late to try and weasel your way out of this one! What's done is done. And if you love clubs so much-" He pulled the stack out from under her hand and held it out length-wise between two fingers, "Here's all your clubs!" He pinched the deck, sending cards flying out in every direction toward the crowd. Some were caught by the onlookers, most landed on the ground but they all were the same: Clubs.

Aces, kings, queens, numbers, all from different brands and far more than any one standard deck would allow. All clubs.

The crowd cheered and clapped, growing louder when Felix draped an arm over Desiree's shoulder and announced: "Everyone give a around of applause for Desiree, she was a wonderful assistant!" As the crowd roared, he picked up three cards off the ground and handed them to her. Three aces, all of different styles but all signed with is name somehow. She seemed overjoyed at this as she grabbed his face and kissed him on both cheeks, leaving coffee-colored lipstick stains, then walked back to her excited children.

Felix turned back to the crowd with a goofy smile on his face. "And thank you all for coming! I hope you enjoyed the show!"

After a bit, the crowd began to disperse. Amy watched as some people approached Felix and attempted to offer money, he would react in the same way for each of them: He held up his hand, refusing to take the money and instead offered up a high-five or fist bump. The person always smiled and returned the gesture, making Felix's own smile even wider.

As the last of the people went on their way, Seán took his chance. He ran at the performer and jumped on his back, wrapping his arms around his shoulders and his spindly legs around his waist. Felix shouted and cursed in a mixture of English and Swedish.

"Hi ho, Silver!" The Irishman cheered.

"You son of a-!"

"Room for one more, fellas?" Mark jumped on the man as well. Unable to wrap his legs around him and Seán, he wrapped them around his knees, causing him to lose his balance and sending all three of them toppling to the ground in a crumpled heap of hysterical laughter.

Amy watched all of this unfolding, making note of how Mark didn't seem too alarmed when his hat was knocked off his head, only realize it was off when they all clamored to their feet. He quickly retrieved it and put it back on.

"Don't you guys have jobs?" Felix said while brushing his sleeves off.

"Harassing you is my job, Felix." Seán happily announced and draped his arm around the other man's shoulders.

"And I'm between cases at the moment," Mark explained. He put a hand on either side of Felix's face and pushed in, forcing the man to make a kissy-face. "So, I'm all yours, sweetie."

Felix playfully slapped his hands away. "Well, make yourselves useful and help me pick these cards up." He untangled himself from Seán and began to do just that, bending over to collect the cards that bystanders and spectators had not.

"Hang on a second," Mark interrupted him, placing a hand on his shoulder and motioning toward Amy, "Felix, this is Amy Nelson."

The blonde man straightened up and looked at the woman. "You're the lady from the university?"

Amy looked at Mark, "What, did you tell everyone about me?"

But he ignored the question. "I noticed you haven't shaken his hand, Amy." He smirked. "That's a bit rude if you ask me."

"Well, if you ask me," Amy put a hand on her hip, "feeding off of someone's emotion without their permission- be it good or bad- is a tad bit ruder."

"Wow." Seán blurted out in complete awe. He pointed accusingly at the vampire. "Okay. No. You have to had told her. There is no way-"

"What? What happened?" Felix was lost.

"-there's no way she could have just figured out that Felix being an empath! There is just no way!"

"I didn't tell her anything, I swear." Mark defensively put his hands up, "She's just that good."

"At what?" Felix continued his attempts at getting their attention, "What are you talking about?!"

"Well, it was a bit tricky at first," Amy explained, "But once I noticed that he was maintaining physical contact with that woman during the trick, the whole thing was kind of obvious."

"Fine, if you don't want to help, that's fine!" The Swedish man declared moving past all of them to resume the task of cleaning up the multitude of club cards on the sidewalk. "I've gonna clean all this shit up so I don't get fined again!"

"Quit yer bitchin', ya baby!" Seán slapped him on the arm and began helping him.

Amy and Mark joined them and as they gathered the scattered stack of cards, Mark explained Amy's knack for knowledge. About how she was able to figure out Mark's vampiric nature with nary a glance and Seán being a nature fae just by observing the plants around him. He told him that Mark wouldn't tell her a thing about Felix's emotion-eating just to see if she could figure it out on her own. And she had. Amy found herself almost blushing when the stories and examples bordered on bragging.

"So, you just know things?" Felix asked as she handed him the cards she had picked up.

"Not really," She brushed off Mark and Seán's praises, "I just look at whats going on and put things together. It's not that big a deal."

"Don't be humble about this!" Mark demanded. "Don't you dare be humble about this!"

"Is that why the department needed your help?" Felix continued, going through the motions of counting the cards, but seemingly not paying attention.

"I guess so," Amy shrugged, "I don't see why they would though. Matthew and Stephanie at the library are perfectly capable of research."

"What did you have to research?"

She paused and looked at Mark, unsure of what information she could reveal. "Uhh..."

But, her thoughts were interrupted by Seán draping himself dramatically over Mark. "Can we talk about this over food?" He whined, "Normally, when I come to bug Felix he has the cart I can steal from. But now what am I supposed to do?"

Mark rolled his eyes. "Fine, we'll continue this discussion while we eat."

"Oh," Felix perked up, "I know the perfect place." He began to lead them, "Come on, it's on me as long you're buying."

"Oh, hardy har har." Seán sassed.

* * *

Felix's "perfect place" had turned out to be a fast food chain restaurant that was just on the other side of the street. They waited in the lines of people and when it was their turn, a disinterested teenager in a brightly colored uniform took their orders and before anyone could reach for his or her own wallet, Felix had swooped in and paid for everything, in spite of his earlier quips. They were given their trays and walked upstairs to where the tables were, sitting in a quiet corner so they could talk without the curious ears of passersby.

Amy had gotten a simple 'hamburger, fries, and drink' meal and Mark had not ordered anything, the average fast-food not typically selling O positive or AB negative. Seán and Felix, however, had both ordered more food than should be possible for any one human to eat ever. Burgers, nuggets, milkshakes, several carton of fries. Amy was amazed they managed to keep it all on one tray.

As they all sat, Mark swiped a nugget from one of the boxes on Seán's tray. Neither Seán nor Felix noticed and Amy had assumed Mark thought she hadn't either. She had.

He began relating to the fae and empath about the case. The attacks, the bodies, sightings of a winged creature that was saving people from street crime. He told them about the stone warriors and how the only surviving one had been sent to New York. He left out why he was the only surviving one, but continued on about how they had gone to see him. Amy chimed in at some parts, filling in some information before continuing the story herself, going on about the research they had done into Tyler's tribe- she had to explain that his name was Tyler to the confused men- and that he had been asleep for a little more than a thousand years. She left out the parts regarding him freaking out and trying to kill her, of course, but described the giant wings of stone that sprouted from his back, confirming him as the killer they'd been looking for.

"So, wait," Seán interjected with a mouth filled with food. "This guy kills like six people-

"Eight." Mark corrected.

"-Eight people, and they send two suits to come arrest him? After sendin' an idiot and a librarian to look into it?" He turned to Amy, "No offense."

"None taken." She laughed.

"Where's my 'no offense'?" Mark pouted.

"Shut up." Was his only answer.

"It does seem crazy, though." Felix pondered. "Why were they so casual about it?"

"I'm not 100% sure of the laws in New York," Amy said, "but in Massachusetts cases of Tempus Somnum Sickness are treated more as social work cases than criminal justice cases. And this guy is definitely suffering from it."

"Tempus what?" Mark, of all people, was the one to question the sudden Latin.

"Tempus Somnum Sickness." Amy repeated, a bit slower this time.

He still looked confused.

"It's the psychological effects brought on by an immortal or an enduring undergoing Tempus Somnum..." She offered up.

He simply stared at her, brow furrowed and mouth agape.

"When they sleep for extremely long periods of time."

"Oh." He seemed to finally understand.

"So, whats gonna happen to him?" Felix asked.

"They might try to assimilate him into modern day society. But it might take a while." Amy sighed. "That poor man was broken."  _Literally and figuratively._

"And you're stuck in Manhattan until they decide."

Amy shrugged. "I guess so."

"Well, I hope you didn't have anything planned for the next couple of weeks back home." Felix joked.

They sat and talked for a while. About Amy's work at the university, how Amy was staying at Mark's place, how long Seán and Felix knew Mark- Seán had known him since 1993 and Felix had met him in 2013- and what Seán and Felix do for a living: Seán managed a pub in Hell's Kitchen and Felix sold hot dogs and did performances like the one they saw. At one point, the two of them got up to refill their cups and out of the corner of her eye, Amy saw Mark pop a chicken nugget-sans breading- into his mouth.

"I can't believe Marzia fell for a fuckin' hot dog vendor." Seán joke as he and Felix sat back down.

"What can I say?" He grinned a smug grin. "It's the jokes. Ladies love the jokes."

"Wait, 'Marzia?' As in  _The_  Marzia?" Amy questioned. "Marzia Bisognin the fashion designer?"

Felix's grin grew wider and smugger as he nodded.

"Marzia Bisognin is dating a hot dog vending street performer?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa," He objected. "I prefer the term 'busker,' okay? It's different. Makes me sound less like a bum."

"You  _are_  a bum, Felix." Both Mark and Seán said simultaneously.

"Yea, well I'm a bum with a hot, fashion designer girlfriend, God damn it!" He slammed a fist on the table. "Mark, you needed the government to fly a woman out from a different state just to get a girl in your house! And, Seán, I don't even know if your kind has genitalia!"

"I have genitalia!" Seán seemed slightly offended. "It's very nice genitalia!"

And the conversation went on from there; The empath and the fae picking on each other about size and performance of each others...parts, before turning their attention and mockery to Mark, questioning if his...parts even worked. To which Mark was quick, and loud, to inform them that they did. Amy lowered her head and slouched in her seat. Her face was red with embarrassment and it was only made worse by one of the workers approaching them and asking them to leave, as customers were complaining about a group of men shouting things too inappropriate for a family restaurant. They all agreed it was time to go and cleaned up the table. Amy used a napkin to pick up the bits of breading that had somehow gotten on the floor under Mark's chair, and they walked down the stairs and out of the building, back into the crowded streets and sidewalks of Times Square.

Felix said his goodbyes and see-yas, saying that he had a date with Marzia later that night and was headed home. To his delight, Amy shook his hand and told him that it was a pleasure meeting him. And he smiled a bit because he knew she meant it.

After he departed, the remaining three began making their way through the city. Amy wasn't sure of where they were headed but Mark and Seán seemed like they were familiar with the route, so she wasn't worried. After a bit of walking, they had arrived at a small pub on a much quieter street. Amy assumed it was the one Seán was talking about. The outside was decorated with Irish flags, shamrocks, and above the door was a faded greed sign with pleasant white lettering reading Florie's. When they entered, a small bell above the door announced their presence.

It was dimly lit inside and dust danced in the air in what little rays of light managed to shine through the windows. But, the place seemed cozy. They sat at one of the small round tables and Seán hollered to the man behind the bar- Malcom, a man whose youthful smile and full, white beard told conflicting stories about his life- to bring them "a pint, a glass, and a 'bloody bottle.'" The "bloody bottle" was the first thing brought to the table. It was an unlabeled, brown beer bottle containing a dark liquid that was placed in front of Mark.

"Thanks, Mally." He raised it to the man before taking a sip.

A short while later, a pint glass and a smaller glass where placed in front of Seán and Amy. Malcom grabbed the top of Seán's hat, tore it off his head, and placed it on the table.

"No hats inside, ya shite." He teased in an accent even thicker than Seán's as he ruffled the man's green hair.

"Kiss my arse, Malcom!" Seán laughed back at the man. Malcom returned to his place behind the bar, leaning over it and writing in a leather-bound journal.

Seán took a large swig of his drink and Amy took some small tastes of hers. Mark continued taking the biggest sips he could while still keeping the bottle's obvious contents off his lips and teeth as they talked some more.

"Jesus Christ," He muttered, "was it it really 1993? Have we known each other  _that_  long?"

"Almost twenty-five years." Seán answered.

"Makes sense. I mean, that's when the horrible nightmares began."

"Your nightmares or my nightmares?"

"So," Amy jumped in, "when did you come to America, Seán?"

Seán looked at her in the eye with a deathly serious face. "What makes you think I'm not from America?" The bluff didn't last as it only took a second for Seán break down into giggles. "I'm just fucking with ya. I got here when every Irishman got here: 1850s."

"Really?" Amy couldn't really help but be shocked. It was true that nature fae lived for a very long time, but that didn't necessarily mean they aged well. Seán looked no older than someone in their mid-twenties. "During or after the famine?" She quickly added. "If you don't mind me asking."

"It's all after the famine now, isn't it?" He shrugged, "It was 1853. A year after it was," he made air quotes with the hand that wasn't holding the pint, "'officially' declared over."

"Huh, I wonder who's in charge of," Amy also used air quotes, "'officially' declaring something like that over?"

Seán shrugged and took another sip.

"So, don't let that childish demeanor fool you," Mark interjected, "he's really just an old fart."

"It's the green hair," Seán nodded, "hides all the gray."

"I'll never have to worry about that." Mark smirked and sipped his drink.

"Yea, well, at least my dick still works."

Mark choked and leaned forward over the table, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. He slammed a fist down on the table, "It works, God dammit!"

Seán burst out laughing and maybe it was her drink or maybe it was her company or maybe it was the fact that they were no longer in a crowded restaurant, but Amy couldn't help but chuckle at how defensive Mark was being.

They continued on chatting for a while. Mark and Seán relating stories of the antics they had gotten into over the past 25 years. Sometimes they would get so absorbed in trying to accurately tell the tales, they seemed to forget that Amy was there; mentioning names of people and places she didn't know.

Amy didn't have any more drinks after her initial one, but several more pints and 'bloody bottles' were ordered for the boys. Eventually, and not too long after Malcom had cut them off, they decided it was time to call it a night. Mark offered to pay for both his and Amy's drinks, but Seán refused. The two hugged out their goodbyes and when Amy went to shake Seán's hand, he pulled her into a friendly embrace and refused to let go until she hugged him back.

Outside, the sun was low in the sky. It's light somehow shining even brighter through the spaces between the skyscrapers. They walked with their back turned to it, but still passed areas where it's yellow-gold nearly washed out all other colors.

"So, what is in one of those bloody bottles?" Amy asked with a grin.

"Oh, ya know," Mark sheepishly shrugged, "some liquids."

"Oh, yes, I believed the alchemists of old called it  _aqua vitae_."

"Which means?"

"'Water of life.'"

"Pretty accurate, then." He chortled. A moment of silence passed between them before he spoke up again. "Hey, I'm sorry, if I made you feel like a show pony today."

"What do you mean?"

"With dragging you out here to see if you could figure out what Seán and Felix are."

"Oh, please, don't be sorry about that. It was fun. They were fun." She cocked an eyebrow toward him. "It's nice to relax a little after almost dying yesterday."

"Oh, poor Amy. Almost got hit by a desk." He playfully mocked.

She rolled her eyes. "I guess it's just kind of cool that people think that me, ya know, doing my thing is cool. But, at the same time it's kinda, I don't know," She paused to find the word, "odd? I guess? Not in a bad way, of course. It's just that, while it's crazy-awesome for everyone else, it's just normal for me. It's like someone walking up to you and praising you on how well you looked at something."

"I would accept that praise." Mark nodded.

"I'm sure you would." Amy snickered.

"I just think it's amazing." He stated. "No clues or anything you just knew. Seán was a bit obvious, yea. Anyone would have figured it out eventually. But you did it in literally minutes of meeting him. And Felix? There was absolutely nothing. And you got him, too."

Before she knew what she was doing, Amy was answering him. "I also figured some other things out."

"What things?"

"Some things about you."

Mark stopped and looked at her. They stopped in the space between the buildings, sun rays casting shadows of Mark's hood onto his face. But Amy could still see his smug grin.

"Oh, really? What about me?" He challenged.

"That you aren't a vampire."

His smile fell. After a second of stunned silence, he let out a forced chuckle. "Do you really need me to explain what's in a bloody bottle? 'Cause it's not tomato juice, that's for damn sure."

"Oh, so _now_  you're doubting my abilities?" It was her turn to have a smug grin plastered across her face.

"I'm just wondering how you came to this brilliant conclusion?"

"Well," She began "the sun, religious imagery, and silver don't seem to bother you-"

"Where does silver come in in this?"

"My baton is silver-cored and it didn't hurt you to touch it. And, yea, All those things could be explained away with 'Oh, it's just because of my age,' but you're not that old. You didn't even know what Tempus Somnum is so a hundred years at most. Plus, don't think I didn't see that giant bruise on your shoulder from where the desk hit you or the food you were eating today."

"So, if all of these things point to non-vampire, what am I?" His voice was suddenly frightening low. She should have taken this as a sign to stop. But for some reason, she felt as if she needed to keep going.

"You're a damphyr. But the fact that you still need to drink blood and only seem to be able to eat meat means that your mother was the vampire in your parentage."

There was a pause. A long one.

"Is." He curtly responded.

"Is." She corrected. "Sorry, I didn't mean-"

"It's fine. I knew what you meant." Mark removed his sunglasses, folded them up, placed them in his pocket. "You are good." He then removed his hat, placed that in his pocket, and lowered his hood. He squinted against the shine of the setting sun, but was otherwise unscathed.

With the rush of her lecture fading, Amy had only just realized that she may have overstepped her boundaries and felt horrified at her outburst. She began to stutter out an apology. "I'm sorry. I-"

"Sixty-eight."

"What?"

"I'm 68 years old." He started, his voice seeming normal again, "My dad was an American GI serving in the South Pacific during World War II. The whole region was my mom's main haunt at the time. He was cornered by the Japanese army and she saved him. Couple years later: Me."

"Felix  _did_  mention you were Korean." She pondered out loud.

"Yea, my mom's old enough to have lived through a lot of the bullshit Japan did to Korea throughout history." He nervously rubbed the back of his neck, "So, saving my dad was most likely just a bi-product of venting some pent-up emotions if not completely accidental."

There was another pause.

"I won't tell anyone else." She said, "Your secret is safe with me."

"Thank you." His smile returned. He retrieved his glasses and hat from his pocket and put them back on. "I appreciate it. I really do."

Again, a pause.

"Sixty-eight, huh?" Amy mused. "You don't look a day past 50."

Mark turned and quickened his pace. "That's it!" He teased her over his shoulder. "I'm leaving you here. Use that super sense to find your own way home!"

"No, wait!" She ran after him, laughing, "Did I say 50? I meant 40!"

"Ya dead to me, Amy Nelson! Dead to me!" 


	7. Looked, And Behold

  
"Remember the other day when you felt bad for strutting my observation skills?"

"Those were just tests. Think of this as the final exam."

They made their way up the narrow staircase, passing a few small windows that looked out into the alleyway between the old apartment buildings. The stairs creaked under their feet and as they moved they kicked up dust that floated about in the air.

It had been a few days since Mark took Amy around Manhattan to evaluate her power of deduction. They still had received no word from the Department regarding Tyler's case, so they continued to wait. In the meantime, Mark continued to take her to various places around the city. They had gone to another part of Central Park once or twice since their initial trip where they first met Sean. A different part of it each time and Amy was still convinced they had covered less than half of the place.

Today, however, there were no tourist destinations in sight. Unless one counts a seedy corner grocery store that only accepts cash as tourist destination. Mark had run in, telling Amy to wait outside as apparently the store owner became paranoid when groups of people came in together. He instructed her to hold onto her bag tightly- though not so tight as to make it obvious- and to keep her sunglasses on and try to keep a disinterested look on her face- but, again, not to dramatically. A few minutes later, he emerged from the store with the backpack he had slung over his shoulder that morning looking filled to burst with God-only-knows-what. She questioned what he had bought,but he told her she'd have to wait and see.

She had only figured out that she was in for another round of  _Guess Who_  when they had walked up to the front door of the old apartment building.

"And here I thought I was done with exams after graduating." She joked.

"Yea well, at least these tests don't cost you twenty-five thousand dollars a year."

"I actually didn't really pay for college."

"What?" The vampire looked at her with a confused look.

She raised her brows at him. "Mark, it's the Miskatonic University and I'm Franklin Elwood's great-granddaughter. It was basically four years of job training."

"So, Frankie boy hooked you up?"

"Lord no, he didn't want me anywhere near that school." She laughed, "I was offered a full scholarship after a college visit to the university library that, uh," she paused then quickly finished,"may or may not have involved me accidentally translating a previously unknown chapter of The  _Malleus Maleficarum_."

"What?" Mark snorted, "How do you 'accidentally' do that?"

"It was open on the table and no one was around it. So, I sat down and starting reading. I was having trouble figuring it out at first. I really shouldn't have though, it was Latin but, to be fair, it was a handwritten manuscript so I was more deciphering chicken scratch than anything else. So, I was taking down notes on my phone. Next thing I know, one of the researchers is screaming at me, asking me what I've done and what I think I'm doing."

"Then what happened?"

She tried and failed to hide her smirk." I told him his translation was off."

Mark let out a loud laugh.

"And I could tell he was getting ready to yell at me some more, until someone else came in and started yelling at him."

"Oh, God."

"So, the new guy is looks at my notes, he looks at the researchers notes,and then tells the researcher to- and I quote- 'Go find something else to do.'"

"Oh. My. God." Mark seemed in awe.

"And he and I sat there and talked for several hours while I translated the rest of the chapter."

"And who was this guy?"

"The head researcher of the university."

"Holy shit." He paused to think a moment. "But isn't that-"

"My job, now? Yes. I wasn't kidding when I called it job training."

"Goddamn, Amy Nelson." He shook his head but he found himself unable to stop smirking.

A few moments of silence passed as they continued the trek up the staircase, until finally they reached a landing that branched off into a hallway with a few doors. They approached one with a small,slightly rusted  _4_  bolted to it.

"So," Mark spoke up again, "you're good with old, Latin books, are you?"

"I mean I just told you-"

"So, tell me, Amy," Mark's demeanor suddenly grew deathly serious, "What do you know about the Book of Revelations?"

"Uh, well," She was a bit taken aback by the seemingly random question."It's a book in The Bible recounting the visions of a man named John- either John the Evangelist or John of Patmos. It involves social commentary, historical commentary, and what many believe to be the end of the world and the second coming of Christ." She cocked an eyebrow, "Why do you ask?"

"What if I told you someone from the Book of Revelations was just behind this door?" He nodded toward the door in question.

"Are you going to try and convince me that Jesus or St. John is living in this rundown apartment in-" She stopped. "Where are we again?"

"East Village."

"East Village? Jesus has been hanging out in East Village? Because I will walk out of this building and throw myself into the Hudson if that is the case."

"It's not Jesus, it's not John, it's not even that naked lady with with sick forehead tattoo-"

"She wasn't naked. Quite the opposite, actually, she was dressed in the finest clothes and jewelry-"

"She was eventually naked but it doesn't matter. She's not in there-look," He seemed determined to stop this train of dialogue, knowing it would go on forever if he allowed it. "there are others in Revelations. But there are four  _very_  important ones."

Amy furrowed her brows. "The four horsemen?"

Mark nodded.

"The four horsemen of the apocalypse?"

He nodded again.

"Are behind this door?"

Another nod.

"Living in an apartment in East Village?"

"That's right."

Amy hesitated. "Is this another Matthew Patrick scenario?"

"Will you drop the Matthew Patrick thing, already? No, this isn't that."He took a deep breath. "Do you know what each horseman represents?"

"Well, each version of the bible has it's own wording and different scholars have different interpretations," She contemplated, "But the most common is: conquest, war, famine, and death."

As if on cue, a muffled scream was heard from inside the apartment, making Amy jump.

"Good."

"Oh, I see." She raised a brow at him, "Instead of  _Amy, what is this guy?,_  it's  _Amy,_ which  _is this guy?_ "

"You were thrown off when I told you I was a vampire. Which is technically half true." He muttered that last under his breath. "So, I want to see what you can do when presented with the whole truth."

"And nothing but the truth?" She joked.

"I will throw you into the Hudson myself, young lady." He warned, "Now, prepare yourself. You're actually going to be meeting  _The_  Four Horsemen."

She straightened up and nodded. "Okay." Despite her quips, she did find herself a bit nervous. Fae, vampires, and empaths were all  _types_  of supernatural beings. But The Four Horsemen themselves? They would be more than just supernatural, they would be  _divine_  beings. And not just any divine beings, but supposed heralds of the end of the world. Why would they be in New York?

Amy watched with her anxiety growing as Mark struggled to open the door as quickly but as quietly as possible. She was about to speak up and question what he was doing when she heard a click. The door opened,allowing them to clearly hear the conversation that had been muffled before. Four very different voices were talking back and forth and over one another, while dramatized death screams and punching came from what sounded like a television.

"So, Johnny- Whose Johnny? Woolie?"

"I am."

"Matt is."

"Oh, Matt? You've got the disadvantage pretty hard."

"Wait, why?"

"'Cause he has Smoke and you've got bad ducking."

"Oh, I didn't even see that it was- Oh, fuck!"

"Throw the skull! Skull!"

"There's electric floors happening."

"Oh, my god."

"Matt's winning..."

"Use more super kicks! More! More than none!"

"Oh, no! Now, Woolie's got the skull advantage!"

"Do super kick-!"

The man's demand was interrupted by an excited roar from all them at once.

"Why am I smoking?"

"The dash-kick he did to me took off half my life."

"'Cause it's heavy damage!"

"Use super kick, yea! That's the shit! And nut punches."

"Nut punches only."

"Throw the skull!"

"What happened to me?"

"It's Smoke. That was Smoke."

"The Smoke advantage happened."

"Smoke advantage!"

"Smoke was like 'get out of here.'"

"'Get out of here, fucking nuts.'"

"'Get out of here, fuck-face."

Another chorus of enthusiastic shouting.

"Brutality! Holy shit! How even?"

"That's a fucking conclusive loss."

They began laughing too loud for Amy to make out anything else, but she had heard enough to understand what was happening. She marched her way through the apartment, into the living area where four men sat on a couch facing away from her and toward a very large TV that was playing a violent but cheesy video game. Bags of chips, boxes of cookies, and cans and bottles of various beverages both alcoholic and non piled up on the small coffee table in front of them.

She went around the couch and stood staring at the men in confusion. They were a motley crew to say the least:

The first was a slender young man- younger and more lithe than the others- with hair a little past his shoulders.

The second, a pale man with a full, ginger beard and either a large forehead or receding hairline.

The third one was burly, black gentleman with a mass of multicolored dreadlocks streaming down from under a beanie.

And finally, the fourth man. He was also bearded and the thin black line of his sideburns in combination with the black beanie with a menacing skull emblazoned on it framed his pale and very confused face.

She wasn't standing in front of the TV, but they clearly were not expecting a woman to appear out of thin air. Their heads swiveled in unison to face her.

"These are them?" Amy motioned toward them with both hands while looking befuddled at Mark, now making his way into the apartment. "These are The Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse?"

"How did you get in my house?" The ginger one asked.

"Hey, guys." Mark announced his presence as he walked in, slinging the backpack off his shoulder and onto to arm of the couch. His entrance was met with cheers and whoops and humorous name-calling.

"What is it with you and breaking and entering?" The dreadlocked man asked.

"I hope you wiped your fucking feet." The ginger spoke up again.

"Does this  _madame_  belong to you?" The one in the skull beanie asked him, pointing at Amy.

"Yea, she's my temporary handler."

"Aw, geez."

"Miss," The young one addressed her, "blink twice if you're being held against your will."

"Oh, no no no. She's not the victim here!" Mark began fishing up the contents of the backpack. A few bags of various kinds of chips, a few boxes of variants of the same kind of cookie, and two six-packs of some kind of energy drink. He handed them off to the men as he spoke. "I had a desk thrown at me!"

"By her?!" The dread-locked man pointed at Amy. The ginger began laughing at the idea of it.

"No, by a thousand-year-old rock monster!"

"That sounds fucking awesome! Holy shit!" The one in the skull beanie shouted as his face lit up like an excited child.

"It was not as awesome as you'd think, Matt."

"What were you doing that involved a thousand-year-old rock monster?" The young one questioned.

"And has it been resolved because I don't really want to walk into that on my way home." The dreadlocked man added.

"It's been resolved. Sort of. Waiting on the department to get their shit together." A chorus of monotone sounds of understanding arose then faded. "But first of all," He walked over to Amy, placing a hand on her shoulder, "this is Amy Nelson, head researcher at The Miskatonic University."

"No shit?" The ginger seemed pleasantly interested.

" _The_  Miskatonic University?" Matt asked, "Like with the Necronomicon and shit?"

"Yea." Amy resisted the urge to shift uncomfortably at mention of the tome. It had become taboo in the university to speak the actual title of such kinds of books, instead referring to them by the author's name. The Necronomicon being referred to as  _Abdul Alhazred's Writings_  in polite conversation or  _The Book of The Mad Arab_  in less polite ones.

"Amy," Mark continued, pointing to the young one, "This is Liam Allen-Miller."

He moved to the ginger, "Pat Boivin."

Then,the dreadlocked man, "Woolie Madden."

And, finally, the one in the skull beanie, "And Matt Kowalewski."

They all greeted her as their names were called while helping themselves to the spoils Mark had brought them.

"She's the reason the whole rock monster mothman issue was resolved." Mark explained.

"So it was a mothman, as well?" Liam asked, "I'm confused."

"We're still trying to figure out what he is." Amy explained, "As far as we know, there's no record of anything like him. Mark suggested that he may have been transformed into some kind of gargoyle-like creature."

"Dude, that sounds sick as shit." Pat declared.

"Oh, he's sick alright." Mark muttered.

The ginger patted the cushions next to him, motioning for them to sit."Tell us all about it while I kick Liam's ass."

"Yea,like that's gonna happen." Liam answered.

The couch didn't look as if it could handle anymore people, but somehow Amy and Mark fit on it just fine. Amy sat between Liam and Pat and Mark sat between Woolie and Matt. Amy told related the story to them as controllers and cookies were passed around the group. The boys were invested in the various games that they booted up, but whenever Amy paused either to reacted to something that had happened on screen or to collect her thoughts, someone asked a question or made a comment, indicating that in spite of the shouting, name-calling, and one liners, they were just as interested in her story as they were in slaughtering virtual representations of each other.

Eventually, the metaphorical gauntlet was thrown down in front of her. She was just about to explain the connection between the Visigoths and the Kingdom of Asturias, when Pat handed her the controller with an expectant look on his face.

"I guarantee that you have just made a huge mistake." Mark said.

"What do you mean?" Pat questioned.

The vampire didn't answer. He only smirked and leaned back in his seat.

Amy knew what he had meant. It's true she had been observing the five of them, but the games being played had switched several times since they had sat down. And while she wasn't unfamiliar with video games-growing up she had spent many a Saturday morning in front of a TV with her friends and family- her schooling and subsequent job had caused her to fall behind on anything that had been released in the past few years.

She lost the match 3 to 2. But, each round was close enough to have all the boys shouting in excitement. She went on to beat Matt and Woolie with her streak being broken by Liam, who triumphed with little effort. Pat snatched the controller out of her hand, eager to challenge the younger man.

The battles- if they could be called that- continued on as usual. Amy continued the rest of the story of the stone warrior and what remained of the snacks and drinks were passed around as needed. That is, until strife arose from the group after Woolie dropped an empty can on the floor and it rolled underneath the couch just out of reach. Everyone could only laugh at how angry this made Pat.

"I can't believe there's a fucking soda can under my fucking couch." He grumbled.

Woolie was down on all fours, reaching under the sofa and pawing around blinding for the can. "It's an energy drink, actually."

"That's even worse. It'll be even stickier when it spills everywhere."

"Calm down. It was empty anyways." He began to stand up, having given upon finding it, only to wobble slightly and hit into the coffee table, knocking over several other not-so-empty cans. Their contents spilling all over the floor and the other occupants of the room.

"God fucking damn it, Woolie!" Pat roared, rage clearly evident. But, the other boys only laughed, becoming more and more hysterical as Pat became more and more irate.

Even Amy herself couldn't hold back her laughter. Even though her clothing had been covered with the sticky, sugary drink, she couldn't deny the sight of Pat turning red with anger while Woolie rolled on the floor in a fit of giggles was hilarious. She looked over at Mark who was also breathlessly trying to recover from laughing too hard.

"Bet they didn't say anything about this in the Bible." He whimpered to Amy, wiping tears from his eyes.

"I must have missed the part about The Four Horsemen being a bunch of frat boys."

"Hey." Matt began to object, but after a moment of silence, could only say, "You're not wrong."

"Any idea on who is who, yet?" The vampire asked.

"The fuck does that mean?" Pat grumbled, still upset about the mess.

"Mark brought me along to see if I could figure out which one of you is which horseman." She explained.

Liam gasped dramatically in mock offense. "Mark, how could you use us like that?"

"Hey, I brought you drinks to make up for it-"

"Drinks that are now all over my floor!" Pat shouted, sending the room into hysterics again, "There's a fucking soda can under my fucking couch!"

"Do you want me to move the couch to get the can for you, Pat?" Mark managed to choke out between laughs.

"Shut the fuck up!" But, despite his protests and shouts, eventually Pat began to laugh along with the rest of them. It was several minutes before the room quieted down again, the only sound being the quiet gasping for breath and the occasional soft giggle.

"So, which bitch is which, Amy?" Mark said, wiping tears from his eyes.

Amy straightened herself out and stood up from her spot on the couch. After stepping over Woolie- now seemingly enjoying his new position of lying on his back on the floor- she turned to look at the four of them.

"Liam and Pat were easy to figure out," She started, "But a bit harder to differentiate."

She pointed to Liam. "Conquest. Winning most of the matches even if you weren't the one challenging."

Then, at Pat. "War. Eager to pick fights, both in the games and out, but not always coming out the victor."

She paused for a moment, with the only confirmation she got being Liam raising his eyebrows and nodding slightly while Pat grumbled about not being a loser.

She turned her attention to Matt and Woolie- still on the floor.

"You two were a little harder to pinpoint and honestly, I probably would not have been able to figure out if I didn't eliminate the other two options first."

"Gasp." Mark said the action as word as if to emphasize his dramatized shock. "Amy are you...admitting defeat?"

Amy scoffed. "Not at all." She looked down directly at Woolie. "The trail of destruction you left with both the drink debacle and-" She motioned at the pile of empty cookie packages that they scattered around where he had sat, "-your elephant graveyard of cookies helps give you away a bit, Mr. Famine."

Woolie only let out a short cackle in response.

She looked up again, at the man in the beanie. "And finally, that leaves death."

"Oh, I don't get a cool qualifier? I just get what's left?" He said acting as if he'd been hurt by the idea.

"The skull sort of tipped me off." She joked.

"You never take that beanie off." Pat stated.

"I do take the beanie off." Matt defended himself.

"I've never seen you without that beanie, honestly." Liam pointed out.

"No, shut up, though."

"Take off the beanie, Matt." Pat challenged, leaning over to paw at offending article.

"Fuck off." Matt playfully slapped his hand away.

"Is there just another beanie underneath?" Woolie asked.

Another commotion would have arose but Mark spoke up. "Well, did she get it right?" He had a smug grin on his face, like parent waiting for a teacher to talk about how wonderful their child was.

"Yea, yea, yea," Matt waved him off, "Revelations. Whore of Babylon. Seven Seals. Heralds of The End Times. She got it."

"She's pretty good." Liam added.

Somehow, Mark's smile grew more smug.

"But, uh," Amy began, "How does that work exactly? You're The Four Horsemen and you all just live in New York?"

"We aren't  _The_  Four Horsemen." Liam explained.

"The OG Horsemen, if you will." Woolie quipped, still lying on the floor, but now munching on a stray cookie he'd found in one of the assumed-empty packages, "Those guys are long retired."

"The position of Horseman is more an assigned job than anything else." Pat continued, "Every century or so a new group is chosen. We just woke up one morning and we just..." He shrugged his shoulders, "we just knew."

"We didn't even know each other before that." Matt mused. "We all came to New York specifically to meet each other."

"You can imagine how awkward that meeting was." Woolie held up an arm to mimic reaching out to shaking someone's hand, "'Hi, I'm Woolie. I'm the herald of famine. You must be Matt, the herald of death. Pleasure to meet you!'"

The four of them softly laughed as if they were all remembering it at once.

"But just heralds, right?" Amy questioned, "You don't actually cause the end of the world?"

"Nah." Matt leaned back in the chair and dismissively waved a hand, "That's someone else's job."

"We just show up to tell someone important that it's gonna happen." Liam said.

"Normally, it's just one or two of us." Pat went on, "When shit really pops off, it's three of us."

"But when all four of you show up..." She trailed off.

"That's the big boom, right there." Woolie gave a devilish grin.

"The end of the world?" She asked.

"The end of something." Matt answered, "But, something big. An era. An empire."

"But this," Amy motioned toward all of them, "this isn't that, right?"

"Oh, absolutely not." Woolie assured in a nonchalant tone.

"Oh, you will  _know_  when we show up as a warning." The ginger sounded like he was almost bragging.

She stopped to think a moment, looking over at Mark who was conspicuously not paying attention to the conversation. Instead, he was fiddling with his phone. She didn't know why, but she suddenly had a feeling that testing her skill wasn't the only reason the vampire had brought her here. What was he trying at?

"Now, as punishment Woolie-" Pat started.

"Oh, boy." Matt quickly interjected

"-for getting shit all over my fucking living room, I get to kick your ass in  _Persona 4 Arena_."

"Don't you need to be good at a game before you can kick anyone's ass in it?" The dreadlocked man sassed as he finally pulled himself from the floor.

"Oh, shit!" Liam shouted.

"Fuck all of you!"

Finally, Mark spoke. "While that sounds all fun 'n good and good 'n fun, we should get going." He stood up and stretched.

"Good!" Pat continued to yell, "And take your dirt cloud with you!"

Woolie turned his eyes away from the character select screen full of brightly colored and scantly clad anime girls to speak to Amy,earning him an exasperated 'hurry up!' from Pat, "Sorry about the drink bullshit."

"Oh, don't worry about it." She laughed. "I should probably do some laundry anyway seeing how I'm gonna be here long after you guys are called into action."

"How long have you been here?" Matt asked.

"Almost a week. With enough clothes for four days."

"Gross." Was Pat's reply.

"Wow." Liam said, tone rife with sarcasm, "It's a good thing you don't have a job back in Arkham or anything."

"Yea, good thing." Amy chortled.

They made their way out, Mark giving each of the men a sort of high five-handshake hybrid and Amy shaking their hands and thanking them for having her over. As they closed the door behind them, Matt shouted to Mark to update them later on whatever happens to the stone warrior Amy was telling them about, before Pat's screams of rage mixed with Woolie's mad cackling drowned him out.

* * *

They walked together in silence. It wasn't dark outside yet, but the sun was going to being setting in an hour or so. The sidewalks and streets weren't as busy as they were when they were headed to Pat's apartment, so the their pace was a much more relaxed one.

Eventually, Amy smirked and playfully jabbed Mark's side with her elbow. "You had no idea who was who, did you?"

Mark fought to keep a smile off his face. "I asked when I first met them. They said they'd tell me if I won a tournament against all of them."

"So, you had me stand in for you?" She laughed.

"No," He tried to defend himself, "You didn't even beat all of them. You just figured it all out before they had a chance to deny you the answer."

But it was too late. Amy was off. She bowed at the waist toward him,"'Tis an honor to be chosen as thine champion, my lady."

"Shut up."

She put the back of her hand to her forehead dramatically, "Alas, my lady, thou hast wounded me with only thine words!" She was barely able to hold back her snickering.

"Keep that up and I won't let you use my washing machine."

"Then, I shall be forced to win back thine favor once again, my lady. Mayhaps with a joust this time."

The mockery continued on the entire way back, with Mark only able to smile and shake his head in response by the end of it.


	8. Haunts of Leopards

The door to the laundry room was always locked to insure that only residents of the building could use the machines and that said residents were safe from the possibility of someone who didn't belong there storming in while they were going about their business. But Mark simply lent Amy his key so she could do laundry without having to wait in the room if she didn't want to or have to constantly ask him to come with her to open the door.

The lock on the door was sturdy and the room was brightly lit and clean and it was small enough that she could see the whole place from the bench she sat on. There was a folding table next to the bench, and a small window close to the ceiling, too narrow for any machete-wielding, masked psychos to crawl through, but the fact that this room was in the basement made her a bit nervous about going down there. The brass elevator in the lobby didn't even reach that floor. She needed to take a service elevator located next to a small supply closet in the short hallway off the lobby itself. If you asked her, it was a horror movie set-up waiting to happen.

As tempting as it was to use as many of the machines as she could all at once in an effort to get out of the basement as quick as possible, there was only four washers and three dryers and Amy didn't want to be  _That Guy_ if someone else living in the apartments above came down to use them.

Not that she had seen anyone else who was living here. At first, she thought that maybe the place was occupied by nocturnal beings or vampires other than Mark who could or would only come out at night and that by now she'd at least see someone on the stairs or elevator. But there was no one. Nine million people lived in New York City and here was an apartment building with potentially a dozen barren apartments. The idea of it being completely empty only added the sense of unease she felt being in this room.

If a crazed killer were to come crashing down the door and use her rib cage to sharpen his butcher knife, who would hear her screams of terror or his evil laughter?

The buzzer from the washing machine snapped her out of her morbid thoughts with a jump. She got up to take the clothes from the washer to the dryer, shaking them out before throwing them in, before shutting the door and starting it. She reached down into the yellowed, cracked laundry basket Mark had given her and dug around for something else to put in. She didn't have that many things to wash, but was still making an attempt to do her laundry the same way she would at home.

She stopped her rummaging when she found a certain shirt.

The cream colored top she wore the day she arrived in New York that was now covered in dried blood.

She let out a sigh as she held it up to look closer at the stains. Amy had joked about being stuck in New York until Tyler's case was resolved but, to be honest, she was more worried about him. She didn't even know this man but she felt the need to help him. Perhaps it was the research she did into his life that made her sympathetic or maybe it was the knowledge that he was the only one of his kind left. Maybe it was witnessing firsthand what the thousand years of entrapment in stone had done to him, both mentally and physically. The manic switching from childlike helplessness to the blind, destructive fury and that was without taking into account the eight man body count he'd racked up since his arrival in the city. The more Amy thought about that detail, the more conflicted she became.

He had been a warrior in his past life. His people were the descendants of the people that sacked Rome- the people that started the trend of sacking Rome, in fact. Of course he was capable of killing a person. But even then, the people he attacked and killed were in the process of attacking someone else. Mugging was hardly a crime worthy of a death penalty, but what if Tyler hadn't stepped in...?

She ran her hand down her face with an exasperated groan. Why was she trying to justify the murder of eight human beings?

"Some white vinegar would get that out-"

Amy dropped the shirt and turned around with a short startled scream at the sound of a voice. She hadn't heard anyone else come in the room, which explained why there was no one else in the room.

"Hello?" She called out. Maybe they were at the door? Maybe they came in and left while she was lost in thought? Maybe she had simply freaked herself out with all her thoughts of serial killers and vigilante gargoyles?

She glanced around the room one more time before turning back to what she was doing.  _You are doing exactly what you aren't supposed to do in a horror movie!_ She mentally scolded herself.

"Or a small bit of lemon juice-"

She spun around again. This time, instead of an empty room, she was met with the sight of a cat sitting on the folding table. It was a mass of brown and tan hued fur with wide grey-blue eyes that were now staring the woman down with a hint of smugness.

Amy raised an eyebrow at the creature. She had heard someone speak again and, again, no one else was in the room. Except for the cat.

"Was..." She said, "was that you?"

Unsurprisingly, it didn't answer her.

Amy looked up and over at the small window. It was dark out now but she could see that it was closed but not locked in anyway. She walked to it, lifted the panel, and found it opened inward.

"Is this how you got in here?" She asked aloud to no one and nothing in particular.

"Oh, no. I used the door, of course." Came a sarcastic response.

Amy turned around again. The cat was now lying lazily on it side, but still looking expectantly at her.

There was a long moment of awkward silence as Amy slowly felt herself get more and more annoyed.

"No." She stated. "No. No. No. No. No." She stepped closer to the cat and raised a finger at it. "No."

She took a deep breath.

"In this past week, I have met vampires, thousand-year-old stone Visigoths, ghosts with the hots for their assistants, empaths, fae, and The Four fricking Horsemen!"

She took another deep breath.

"For the sake of my own sanity, I cannot-" She raised her voice for emphasis, " _cannot_ -"and lowered it again, "accept the possibility of a talking cat."

It only blinked.

 

* * *

 

Mark heard the front door slam shut from his spot in the kitchen. He was stood at the bar, leaning over while typing away on his laptop. He watched as Amy walked in and placed the basket of neatly folded laundry on one of the chairs.

"What took ya so long?" He joked, "You wash everything by hand?"

She came over and leaned on the other side of the bar, facing him as she braced herself on her crossed arms.

"Sorry, I got caught up in a very interesting conversation."

Mark suddenly looked concerned. "With who?"

"A cat."

Now, he just looked confused. "What?"

"A cat." She reaffirmed, "I met a cat and we had a conversation."

"Is this some kind of code?"

"What-? No. A cat snuck into the laundry room through the window and we were talking."

"Are you feeling okay?"

"I'm fine."

Mark didn't say anything, he raised his hand to put it on Amy's forehead. She slapped it away.

"Will you stop that?" She scolded him.

"Sorry, I'm having trouble with the idea of a cat breaking into my laundry room to shoot the shit with you."

"Oh, of course. It's absolutely ridiculous."

Mark and Amy turned their heads to see the very cat in question sauntering into the kitchen. It hopped up onto a chair then onto the table, facing them as it continued. "In fact, it's scientifically impossible. Isn't it, Mr. Undead Creature of The Night?"

Mark looked at Amy who looked back at him and shrugged.

"You're just a magnet for weird shit happening, aren't you?" He asked.

"Mark, this is Marzipan." She hesitated, "She's my familiar. Apparently."

"Familiar?" He blurted, "But she's not a mage." he looked at Amy with a raised eyebrow. "You're not a mage, right?"

"No, I'm not." She shrugged again, "Trust me, I'm just as confused as you are."

"So, what are-?" Mark looked back over to Marzipan, letting out a surprised yell as he jumped at what he saw.

Rather than the smug feline sitting on the table top, there was now a smug woman sitting in the chair, legs crossed and elbow on the table with her head resting in her hand. Her hair was one of the shades of brown in the cat's fur, but that was the only connection that could be made. Her clothes were casual and she even wore a pair of glasses. It was as if  _she_  had walked in the room, and not a talking cat.

Mark came around the bar and stood in front of the sudden woman, subtly placing himself between her and Amy. "This is some kind of prank, right?"

The woman was still smirking. "What? Do you think I'm some kind of magic user trying to trick you both into letting me into your house?"

Mark didn't say anything. He only continued to stare daggers at her.

Finally, her smirk faltered into an annoyed frown. "You're no fun." She huffed. "No, Amy isn't a mage. But, it seems her power of perception warrants some kind of recognition from..." she waved her hand in a lazy swirling motion, "whoever is in charge of that."

"And do tell, just  _who_ is in charge of that?" Mark questioned. "Familiars are gifted to mages from whatever entity they pull their power from. Like-" He stopped himself from the obvious comparison upon remembering who was standing behind him.

But the woman continued for him, "Like a certain human-faced rat?"

Mark turned to look inquiringly at Amy. She was looking uncomfortable about the whole situation, to say the least. "Did you tell her about that?"

Amy only shook her head.

Mark turned back to see the cat now lying on it's side on the tabletop.

"Not all familiars are boons from benefactors." She purred, "Some lucky beasties are specially chosen for the job. Pulled from their cushy rat-catching lifestyle to keep a librarian and her vampire boy toy company."

"Marzipan," Amy sighed, "We've been over this, he's a colleague. Not a-" she cleared her throat, " _boy toy_."

"So, what? You're just a talking cat who was ordered to be Amy's familiar?" Mark asked, clearly ignoring the "boy toy" comments.

"Of course not. That would be absurd." The response was sassy, but her tone then shifted to one of genuineness with a hint of...pride? "When I first saw Amy use her abilities, I was granted clarity about what I was destined to do, about what a familiar is, and a bit about Amy herself. Including her fear of familiars."

"Hey, it's not a fear." The librarian protested, "I just...don't like the idea of them."

"You don't need to be ashamed of it, sweetie." Marzipan reassured her, "Familiars and their masters haven't exactly been kind your family-"

"Wait." Mark interrupted. He still had questions but he also didn't want to have to force Amy to talk about  _that_. "When did you see Amy use her abilities? We've been all over the city. In and out of buildings and houses and there were no cats with us."

"When I first got here, remember?" Amy spoke up. "My first words to you were figuring out that you were a vampire. Apparently, she saw the whole thing."

"It only makes sense, I suppose." Marzipan continued, "A person with near-supernatural awareness being gifted with an animal that can see everything while also remaining unseen. No one in a city this big pays attention to another cat on the street." She muttered an aside. "Except for Chinatown. There's a reason we strays avoid that place like the plague."

"So, what's this whole turning into a person thing about?"

"Well, Mr. 20 Questions, it's the 21st century." She said a-matter-of-factually, "People don't usually mingle with polite company while carrying a cat unless it's being worn as a stole. I'll have to blend in somehow." She rolled onto her stomach and stood up. "And I don't necessarily 'turn into' a person, per say. You people are so easy to trick all I have to do is make myself look like one."

"And how do you do that, exactly?"

She jumped down onto the chair, then the floor. "Why, magic, of course." She said sarcastically. She walked past Mark and rubbed her body along Amy's leg before crawling up the spiral stairs.

"And that Chinatown comment was pretty racist." Mark called after her.

"I was born a stray cat with seven brothers and sisters. Ask me what happened to them." She replied without even looking back at him and disappearing upstairs.

"Okay. Never eat food from Chinatown. Noted." Amy mumbled to herself. She was still visibly perturbed at the whole thing.

"Hey," Mark snapped her out of it, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I just..." She sighed. "It just came a bit out of left field."

"Do you want me to get rid of her?" Mark wasn't sure how he would do that, but he was sure he could find a way. Especially after the attitude she had copped with him.

Amy chuckled. "No, it's fine." She walked over to where the laundry basket sat, still on the chair and lifted it onto the table, "I'll just take her back to Arkham with me. I bet none of the other staff at the University have a talking cat." She kept her hands on the basket handles.

"That joked seemed a little too forced for 'fine.'" Mark said.

She sighed again. "It's just...some people I've worked with don't really believe me when I say what I do isn't supernatural or magic in any way and this isn't gonna exactly help that."

"Huh. How ironic that the skeptics are the ones suspecting magic." He mused.

Amy let out a quiet laugh. "Yea, imagine." She picked up the basket and made her way to the staircase. She stopped right before the first step and turned to Mark.

"And, hey," She stuttered a bit, "I, um... I appreciate what you were trying to do. I really do. But you don't need to walk on eggshells about what happened to Frank Elwood. Or Walter Elwood."

"You get enough of that at home?"

"Yea, actually." She gave a nervous laugh, "It happened, ya know? It happened almost 90 years ago and there's nothing anyone can do about it. And it's not that people aren't talking about it. They just aren't talking about it around me. People hear my name or they learn who my family is and they gossip behind my back with everyone else, but when they're around me they try to avoid everything even remotely related to it. Which, as you could imagine, in my line of work, makes things kind of difficult."

There was a long and tense silence. Amy fiddled with the handled of the basket as she shifted her weight from foot to foot.

"I'm sorry." Mark finally spoke up, "I just didn't want to make you uncomfortable."

"No, don't be sorry. If anything I should be sorry. I didn't mean to let it all out on you."

"Been bottling that up for a while, huh?"

She nodded with a forced chuckle.

"Maybe Marzipan can talk to them for you." He himself was unsure if he meant that as a joke or not, but Amy reacted with genuine laughter which made him smile.

"I think Franklin would have been fine with Marzipan, to be honest." She began walking up the stairs," He liked cats and sassy women. My mother says he used to say, 'One keeps away rats and the other keeps away fools.'"

"Which one does which?"

"She said they would ask him that and he would only say: 'Exactly.'" She quietly laughed to herself as she disappeared up the stairs.

Mark watched her as she went, listen to the muffled conversation between Amy and Marzipan for a few seconds before he heard the bedroom door shut.

He sighed and returned to his laptop. He stared at the screen for a while, slowing running his hand through his hair, then closed it.


	9. The Wolf And The Lamb

The events of the evening before had slipped Amy's mind during the night, but as she rolled over and was met with a mass of brown and tan fur, it came flooding back to her. A basement, a talking cat, and a load of laundry that was still in the basket on the floor. One would assume it'd be something that would be hard to forget, but it was so surreal that she needed to remind herself it wasn't some fever dream.

She rolled back over to face the window again and sleepily watched as the light filtering through the blinds grew brighter and brighter. She thought about just how strange this trip had been. She arrived under the impression that the DoSS needed her for simple research help. Yet, here she was almost a week later with still no word about when she would be going home, only that she would be going home with one more cat than previously expected.

As if she knew she was being thought about, Marzipan jumped over Amy and nestled herself in front of her. "Get enough beauty rest, sweetie?" She purred as she stretched.

"Did I sleep through my alarm?" The woman asked, rolling over again and groping the space next to her for her phone. It wouldn't be the first time she did. She was typically a morning person; waking up early and making herself a cup of coffee had to be among the favorite parts of her day. But, sometimes- many times, actually- she would be up all night reading or researching and fall asleep with her nose buried in the pages and wake up a few hours after she was  _supposed_  to show up to work.

Last night, however, it wasn't any kind of book that kept her awake, but staying up all night just talking to Marzipan. Upon their first meeting, the cat only told her about her status as a familiar and demonstrated her parlor trick of looking like a human being, but nothing had been said about Marzipan herself. So, before they finally fell asleep Amy listened to the cat's story of life before encountering her.

She had been born a stray with seven other siblings, as she had mentioned to Mark. She had only hinted at their fates in her passing remark and Amy decided against pushing the subject further. Regardless of the origins that would have labeled her a 'pest' at best and a 'danger to public health' at worse, Marzipan had found a niche for herself in the warehouses and shipyards of Manhattan, catching mice and rats to the delight of business owners and workers alike. Occasionally, she would venture further into the city to win the hearts of restaurant cooks and bodega clerks, but she would never stay too long in one place.

Then one day, while she had been lounging atop a garbage can, toying with her freshly caught meal, she happened to look up and see a blonde woman shaking hands with a man wearing enough clothing for five men.

It was Amy meeting Mark and deducing at once that he was a vampire.

At that point, she suddenly knew. It was almost as if she had known forever and was just remembering it. What a familiar was, that she was one, and that she had just witnessed her master at work and for all her wandering about the city, she was meant to be by Amy's side.

She, of course, gave Amy a disapproving side-glance when the woman suggested that it was almost romantic, to which she only laughed.

The cat wasn't so insufferable as Amy initially saw her. Then again, that may have just been the shock of realizing she had a familiar that painted a different picture for her. She was sassy, yes. She was sarcastic, yes. But she wasn't cruel and Amy somehow just knew that nothing she said was wrong or a lie. It was almost like talking to a child, in a way; She said what she thought and what she knew to be true, regardless of what everyone else would think. Amy couldn't help but respect that.

"Ah, yes, your  _lovely_  alarm." Marzipan rolled onto her back and looked up at Amy, "It was going off for so long,  _I_  even tried to shut it off. But, as you could guess," She raised both front paws into the air, "it didn't exactly work."

When Amy couldn't feel the device with her blind fumbling, she sat up and began rummaging through the blankets and sheets.

"So, what? Did you do that cat thing and push it off the bed?" She half-joked.

"How insensitive of you." The cat sassed, "No, Mark came up to turn it off for you."

She motioned a paw toward the nightstand where, sure enough, Amy's phone sat.  _And plugged into the charger, no less!_

"He also said to tell you to speak with him as soon as you woke up." She added.

"So, why didn't  _he_  just wake me up?" She looked at her phone. She had, indeed, overslept by an hour and a half. But at least her battery was fully charged.

"I don't know, honestly." Marzipan stretched again. "I suspect he was about to, but then he saw how peaceful you looked in your sleep."

Amy looked over at her with an unimpressed, raised eyebrow. Even as a cat, she could see the smug grin on her face.

"Cute." She said curtly before getting out of bed and making her way down into the kitchen.

Downstairs, Mark seemed more than prepared for the day. He was dressed slightly more snazzier than usual. Instead of the t-shirt and hoodie combo it had been for the past few days, it was a red, button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. Amy couldn't help but noticed that it showed off how muscular even his lower arms were. The fact that these muscular arms were now handing her a Styrofoam cup full of coffee wasn't helping in the slightest.

"I didn't know what you like," He said, handing the cup off to her before retrieving packets of sugar and little sealed, plastic cups of coffee creamer from the pockets of the hoodie that was draped over one of the chairs, and tossing them on the counter, "so, I just got you a black coffee and some fixings for you."

She thanked him in a puzzled tone and made her way to the counter. She popped off the plastic lid and got to work adding the cream and sugar, occasionally taking small sips to test the taste. Finally, she found it tolerable and remembered why she had come downstairs.

"Not to sound ungrateful or anything," she began, knowing full well that she would sound ungrateful, "but why didn't you just wake me up to go get coffee?"

Mark crossed his arms over his chest-again, accidentally giving another show of his forearms- and sighed." Because what I'm about to tell you will make you want to skip getting coffee and jump immediately into what's going on."

"Why? What's going on that could make me want to skip coffee?" She chuckled nervously, concern beginning to settle in the pit of her stomach.

He took a deep breath. "The department called. Tyler's case is finally being processed." 

Amy mindlessly tapped a finger on the lid of the cup for a few seconds before responding. "So, we're heading over there."

Mark nodded. "Apparently, the commissioner wants to talk to us personally." He raised a brow. "Or, rather, he wants to talk to  _you_  personally."

"Why?"

He shrugged.

Amy fiddled with the plastic lid some more as she thought. She could understand having to go in to give her story as a witness, but that didn't involve talking to the commissioner himself, did it? Did the he want to thank her? Congratulate her? Tell her to leave his city and never come back? She shook that last thought from her head.  _Too many late-night, hard-boiled detective movies._

"So, hurry up and go get dressed." Mark said, "We're already late and Delamore hates me enough as it is."

"Oh, great. That's comforting." She rolled her eyes and began back up the stairs, "You should have woken me up!"

* * *

On the day Amy had first arrived, Mark had mentioned that Manhattan's branch of The Department of Supernatural Services was near city hall. In fact, they had passed City Hall on the way and Mark nearly had to pry her away from admiring it, much to the amusement of Marzipan. 

They made their way to a nearby building. It wasn't as big as City Hall, but it was almost as stately. Almost. It lacked the grand staircase to the entrance and it didn't have it's own well-maintained park surrounding it, but it was still a sight to behold; beige-colored stonework, roman columns, and rows of windows. Amy could tell it was one of New York's older buildings.

They entered through a set of doors with with bronze plaque reading DEPARTMENT OF SPECIALIZED SERVICES next to it, then through another set of doors into the lobby. There were a few rows of chairs with some occupied but most were empty. Every inch of the walls were lined with awards, engraved plaques, and framed pictures and news articles, and in the center of the far wall was a a round reception desk littered with papers and clipboards where a woman was talking on the phone as people walked back and forth between chairs, hallways, and the desk itself.

The woman seemed to realize they were approaching the desk and before any conversation could be initiated, she slapped a pen down into one of the clipboards, then pivoted in her seat to avoid facing them.

Mark, seeming to know what to do, began writing on the top-most sheet of paper as Amy glanced at what it said. It seemed to be some kind of visitor sign-in, keeping track of people by last name, first name and dates, times and reasons for being there.

In the last open name slot, Mark wrote  _Fischbach, Mark & Amy _and reason for visiting was left blank.

No where did he write her actual last name nor was there any mention of Marzipan, who was very clearly there, currently playing with one of the department's pens by wiggling it between her fingers causing the chain which attached it to the desk to make funny shapes.

They finally left the front lobby and took one of the ornate halls to a area with elevators on both sides. While they waited for one that wasn't filled to burst with people, Amy prodded him about his use of his name.

"It's just easier." Was all he told her.

After the extremely cramped elevator ride, they got off on a floor far busier than the first one.

It looked like something out a crime drama. The wall in the hallway was windowed glass, allowing them to see into the office on the other side. Dozens of men and women in suits shuffled back and forth, talking on phones, talking among themselves, handling paperwork, and working at computers. But, regardless of the level of chaos in the room, a few stopped what they were doing to look at the trio when they walked in.

Amy assumed that the stares were meant for Mark and that she and Marzipan were merely caught in the crossfire. She tried her best not to let the leering gazes get to her, but as they made their way across the room, she noticed two of the sets of eyes belonged to McLaughlin and Neal, the two agents that arrested Tyler.

On the other side of a room, from a behind a desk closest to the door they were headed toward, a girl with a clipboard stepped in front of them. And truly "girl" was the best word to describe her. She was shorter than Amy by at least half a foot and unlike the other women in the office, she didn't wear a suit, but rather a pink, fitted dress with a black sweater over it, making her look both dressed too old for her perceived age and dressed too young at the same time. A silver, heart-shaped tag engraved with GD dangled from a leather choker around her neck.

"Mr. Fischbach." She greeted curtly and with a noticeable New York accent.

"Miss Shoemaker." Mark responded with a slight smirk.

"You certainly took your damn time."

Mark's smirk turned into a sheepish grin in reply.

She turned to Amy, "And you must be Miss Nelson from the University." She held out her hand. "I'm June Shoemaker, assistant to Commissioner Delamore."

Amy shook her hand, "Pleased to meet you, Miss Shoemaker."

June looked past both of them at the third person present. "And you are...?"

"Marzipan." She answered, making no move to shake hands or exchange pleasantries.

"Marzipan...?"

"Just Marzipan."

"She is only here because of bullshit circumstances. She will not be sitting in on this meeting." Mark assured the girl while waving off Marzipan who only rolled her eyes. "I promise you that."

June turned her attention back to him. "With how late you are, you'll be lucky if he let's you in."

"Well, you know how I love making him beg for me." Mark chuckled. He crossed his arms over his chest and rolled his shoulders. Despite his expressed dislike of the department and the people in it, he seemed friendly with June or at least familiar.

The phone on June's desk began to sound off with soft beeps. June turned and picked it up, placing the receiver to her ear. "Yes, Mr. Delamore?" She purred into it, then quickly pressed a button, causing an enraged voice to rise from the speaker.

"June, tell that deadbeat to get his ass in here-!"

June quickly pressed the button again, silencing the voice. "Right away, Sir." She gingerly hung up and looked at Mark, "I assure you, there's no begging involved."

Mark sighed and motioned a hand toward the door. "After you, Miss Shoemaker."

"Try to play nice. We just had the carpets cleaned." June flashed a mocking smile and lead them the rest of the way to the door. It opened to an office lined wall-to-wall with bookcases and shelves which themselves were lined with books, binders, and decorative accents. It wasn't a small room, but it was a smaller room than one would expect someone with the title of Commissioner to have. There were a few chairs in front of a desk that was piled high with more papers and binders.

Sitting behind the desk was a massive figure with slicked back hair and sharply maintained facial hair. He had a cigar clenched in his teeth and the smell of it nearly choked Amy as soon as the door opened.

"Mr. Delamore," June announced, "Mr. Fischbach and Miss Nelson are here-"

"Come in, sit down." He ordered. He seemed to have calmed down in the few seconds between the phone call and them entering.

June stepped to the side and let Mark and Amy in, before closing the door on her way out while saying something to Marzipan that Amy couldn't make out.

The two each sat in one of the chairs facing the desk. Mark leaned back in the seat and propped his head upon his arm, already looking bored, but with an antagonizing look in his eye as he stared at the man. Amy sat up straight and fidgeted with the strap on her purse. She took a moment to look around the room.

The decorations appeared to share a common theme: Medieval warfare. Small statuettes of knights, a helmet displayed on a stand, and behind where the man sat, under a metal plaque of the New York City seal, was a shield with with two swords mounted behind it and fabric of red, yellow, and blue draped down the center of it.

After a moment of silence, the commissioner stood up, took the cigar out of his mouth and placed it in an ashtray, and addressed Amy.

"Allow me to introduce myself, Miss Nelson." He came around the desk and shook her hand, "My name is Gregory Delamore. I'm the Commissioner of The New York branch of The Department of Supernatural Resources."

Now that he was standing, Amy saw just how massive he really was. He was so tall Amy had to lean back in her chair to look him in the face. When she returned the handshake, her hand was easily half the size of his. It made her wonder if the room they were in was actually of a decent size, and it wasn't just Delamore's towering figure that made it seem small.

"I appreciate your patience in regards to Tyler's case. I've been told you've been boarding with Mr. Fischbach, here." He motioned toward Mark, then added, "I'm truly sorry about that."

"Oh, no, it wasn't any trouble." Amy nervously chuckled, "Got some sight-seeing in, so it wasn't so bad."

He didn't even crack a smile, which put Amy a bit more on edge.

"So, where is the case at now?" Mark spoke up.

"Closed." Delamore put his hands in his pockets and leaned back on the desk.

"What?" Both Mark and Amy gasped.

"It was obvious as soon as he walked in here that Tyler would be getting off on insanity." The commissioner reached over a stack of papers and retrieved his cigar. "It was only a matter of what we were going to do with him."

"And that took you almost a week?"Mark asked, clearly trying to stop himself from shouting.

"We needed to observe him to see how far gone his is." He took a puff of his cigar, "And he was pretty damn far. In fact, to get anywhere with him, I had to promise him that he would be able to see you again, Miss Nelson." He turned back to Amy. "He was constantly asking where you were."

She sighed. "I can't really say I'm surprised."

"I've read the report of what happened at St. Peter's-"

"Oh, McLaughlin and Neal didn't file it to make it seem like they saved the day? Shocking." Mark interrupted in a flat tone.

"Watch it, Fischbach." Delamore growled at him with a side-glance and a sneer. He turned back to Amy and his expression softened.

"The clergymen who were interviewed said that he was demanding to talk to you and when you finally got there, you were able to calm him down." He raised a brow. "After an incident with a desk."

Amy squirmed in her seat as if she were a child being scolded.

"You'll be happy to know the desk hit me." Mark interrupted again.

"Well, then, I'll guess that makes up for everything. He's a free man." Delamore snarked in return.

The vampire gave a devilish grin. "Oh, you would if you could."

"But is he alright?" Amy spoke up before another sarcastic response could be made. She thought back to the bloodied and broken state he was in when she last saw him,handcuffed and being pushed into a car by two government agents.

There was a tense silence. Delamore took a few more puffs, occasionally reaching back over to the ashtray to tap the cinders off the end of the cigar.

"We've been keeping him in a holding cell for the time being." He explained. "He was calm when he came in, but we weren't sure how long that was going to last, so we locked him up the same as anyone else." Another puff. "Next morning, I went down to speak to him and he wasn't in the cell and the door was torn off the hinges."

Amy gasped as her mind raced through all the worst-case scenarios.

"Where was he?" Mark asked.

"Sitting outside the cell. Completely calm. So, we talked a while- or rather, I talked to him and he gave me one word answers."

"Sounds about right." Mark mumbled.

"The next night, I told him the door would be shut, but it would not be locked. And we didn't lock it. Sure enough, the next day, the cell door was open and Tyler was just sitting in it."

"So, he either dislikes confined spaces or not being able to leave confined spaces." Amy thought aloud.

"It makes sense." Mark mused, "Guy's been stuck in a statue for a thousand years. He could use a little leg room."

There was another pause, then Delamore spoke up again. "He's had no other incidents since coming in. But unfortunately because of his crimes, he's not eligible for enrollment into our program that helps individuals suffering from Tempus Somnum adjust to change the world underwent while they were asleep."

"So, what's going to happen to him?" Amy asked.

Delamore sighed. "I would like to ask you a favor, Miss Nelson. And you are absolutely free to refuse it. But please, hear me out."

Her brows furrowed in concern. "What favor is that?"

He hesitated as if thinking very carefully about what he was about to say. "The program I spoke of is called Project Re-awakening." He took a moment to roll his eyes, "A very ridiculous name, I'm aware. It was founded in 1948 after the upheaval of the second world war caused many undergoing Tempus Somnum to awaken with nowhere to go and very little idea of what was going on in the world. So, the department sponsored their voyages to America and we paired them with host families..."

Out of the corner of her eye, Amy could see Mark tense up and slowly lean forward in his seat. A look of anger steadily forming on his face.

"Tyler is not eligible for this program. But, with his case being a very unusual one, I may be able to pull some strings to get him the help he needs."

"What favor, Mr. Delamore?" She asked, although she had a sneaking suspicion she already knew the answer.

"I would like to propose the department place Tyler in your custody for the time being, Miss Nelson."

With that, Mark seemed to finally snap.

"Oh, what the fuck?" He shouted, "Are you fucking serious?!"

The commissioner did not look the slightest bit surprised by his outburst. "Yes, Fischbach, I am serious."

"Then are you fucking insane? This guy has killed eight people and your pawning him off on her?"

"I have barely proposed the idea, Fischbach. I haven't pawned anybody off on anybody."

Mark stood up. "You're trying to guilt her into saying yes."

Delamore also stood up. He was taller than Mark when he leaned on the desk, but at his full height he towered over him. "Are you a fucking moron? Second sentence out of my mouth was that she was free to refuse the idea-"

Mark was unfazed by the drastic height difference. "That's the equivalent of saying 'No pressure or anything but...'"

"Amy is the only reason Tyler has been cooperating with us, so of course she was the first choice as a host."

"But, no pressure or anything, right?"

"Listen, Fischbach," His growled, "I'm trying to do my job here and you are making this more headache inducing than it needs to be!"

"You're trying to kafkatrap someone into babysitting a psychopathic murder because you can't be bothered to look for anyone else to do it!"

"Wrong use of kafkatrap, dumbass."

"What will happen to him if I say no?" Amy shouted, interrupting the argument and causing both men to look down at her as if they had forgotten she was even there. She asked again when no answer came. "If I say no, then tomorrow I get on a plane and go back to Arkham and never ever come back to New York, what will happen to Tyler? And I want you to be honest with me."

Delamore sighed and stepped back from his imposing position of standing over Mark and dropped to one knee in front of Amy so he was at eye level with her.

Before now, the combination of his height and her seated position prevented her from getting a clear view of him. But now, with him this close, she began to understand.

His irises were a deep amber color, his canines were just a bit too sharp, his hair and beard were so meticulously groomed it looked as if he had them styled mere hours ago, and there was an ever-so-slight point to his ears.

It all started to make sense to her.

"If you refuse to take Tyler in," He began, "he'll be sent to a group home specifically for supernatural adults with developmental disabilities." He spoke in a voice so tender that one would be forgiven for not believing he and Mark were just spewing abuse at each other.

Amy could tell he was trying to remain stoic and disconnected as he told her this, but it was evident that he was genuinely distraught at the idea.

"And you don't think that will help him." She said.

He shook his head. "No. I don't."

There was another long silence.

"Are you taking special interest in Tyler's case, because you yourself are a person who's live an extraordinarily long time?" She ask quietly and still not breaking eye contact.

He said nothing.

"Specifically, a werewolf of at least 500 years? Judging by your choice in decor."

Again, he said nothing. His expression didn't change. He turned his head to look at Mark, who was now defensively holding his hands up.

"Don't look at me, I didn't tell her anything." He said, a phrase he had gotten used to muttering these past few days.

Delamore turned to look back at Amy but addressed Mark, "Fischbach, please wait outside."

"What? No."

"I would like to speak to Miss Nelson in private."

Mark looked at Amy, who gave him a reassuring nod. He gave a frustrated sigh, but complied. He opened the door with a huffed and slammed it shut behind him. Muffled yelling could be heard on the other side as Mark no doubt was venting his anger to June or Marzipan.

The commissioner stood up and went to retrieve the ashtray and place it on the other side of the desk, closer to Amy.

"Five hundred and twenty three." He said as he walked over to a cabinet on the other side of the room, opening it to reveal a tray with a bottle of brownish liquid and a few glasses on it. He poured a small amount of the liquid into one of the glasses before turning back toward Amy with the bottle and an eyebrow raised.

"Oh," She realized what he was asking, "No, but thank you."

He nodded and placed the bottle back down, closed the cabinet and took a seat with his glass and cigar in the chair where Mark had been sitting.

"Born in 1494. In a village that doesn't exist in any historical record." he continued, "Turned in 1528, while running half-starved through the European countryside."

He took a sip of his drink.

"I was a soldier in the Swiss Guard." He looked at Amy knowingly.

"You were present at the Sacking of Rome?" She asked, "I assume you were part of the rearguard that led the Pope out of the city. Otherwise, we wouldn't be speaking."

"One Hundred and forty-seven of my brothers-in-arms were chosen to die in the name of God. I was allowed to live in the name of God." He chuckled. "You could say it stuck." His expression turned dark again. "We were captured after a month of taking refuge in Castel Sant'Angelo. Holy Rome's troops took Clement hostage, but the rest of us were not so lucky. The siege lasted for months." He took another sip. "They starved and tortured us. A few of us managed to escape. I never found out what happened to the others, but you can guess what happened to me."

"So how does a former Swiss Guard become commissioner of the New York DoSS office?"

"I wandered Europe for a century or two. Came to Quebec in the late 1800s and came to New York in 1935. The commissioner before me was drafted into the army. And, well," He shrugged, "here we are."

"Where you the one who founded Project Re-Awakening?"

"I was." He went to take another sip, but stopped to continue speaking, "But, I didn't come up with the name. I refuse to take credit for the name. That was all June's doing."

Amy tried her best to stifle a laugh at his defensiveness.

"She's technically listed as the program leader, but I manage as many cases as I possibly can. She's smart, but she's barely a century-and-a-half old. She doesn't know what it's like."

He sighed. A contemplative quiet fell over the two. Delamore took a few sips of his drink and puffs of his cigar while staring at the shield decoration on the wall.

"Waking up and realizing that you're hundreds of years out of your own time in a world you no longer recognize is traumatic whether you sleep through it or take the long way." He gave a solemn smirk, "And I'll admit, I tend to get a  bit sympathetic whenever a warrior or soldier passes through the program. Especially from the earlier centuries. Knowing that the king or country or god you once pledged your life to is now nothing but a name in a textbook. It just adds a whole other layer onto it."

There was another pause. Amy was hesitant to break him out of his nostalgic musings. A few friends and family and family friends had passed away in her lifetime, so she was familiar with the feeling of seeing the lives of loved ones being reduced to words on paper. But she couldn't fathom the pain of witnessing everything she knows becoming a footnote in history. Deep in the back of her mind, she was almost grateful.

She recalled a passage from one of her grandfather's journals. It told of a vampire, turned in Persia in 200 BC and currently living in Dubai. He had been a respectable and well-traveled business man throughout the centuries. But one night, something in him snapped and he slaughtered all of his household staff and walked naked into the desert to meet the sunrise.

_The mind of man refuses to acknowledge the abysses of time that stretch behind and before it and, indeed, in every direction surrounding it. The foolish will call this willful ignorance, but the wise know it to be a defense. As once you learn where you lie in the unending passages of time, there is no unlearning._

The locals swore the fire could be seen for miles.

This was one of the theories behind Tempus Somnum Sickness; the agony at the revelation that time is perfectly capable of moving on with or without you.

Amy closed her eyes and tried to shake the thoughts from her head. Delamore seemed to also be just pulling himself from his musings.

"I'll have to stay in New York, won't I?" She asked.

He sighed again. "Yes, you will. I'm able to pull strings in Manhattan-maybe even the greater New York state. But Arkham is far beyond my influence."

"For how long?"

"The metric we work off of is six months with a host family for one century spent asleep. Tyler has been asleep for..." He took a deep breath, "quite a bit longer than that. But, I say a year and we'll see what happens."

"A year." She repeated as if to cement it into her memory.

"The department will issue a housing allowance as well as an allowance for necessities. Groceries, clothing, things like that. For both of you." He stood up, placing his now empty glass on the desk. "Also, I would like for Tyler to spend a few days out of the week with one of the tutors from Project Re-awakening. From what we were able to gather, he is functionally illiterate in any modern day language."

"That's probably a good idea." While Amy was technically a teacher of sorts, she doubted the knowledge she specialized in would help Tyler's mental state at all.

"The idea is to make the arrangement as close to the typical Project Re-awakening arrangement as possible without it actually being one." He returned to his first position of leaning back on his desk. "So, what do you say?"

Amy hesitated. Just that morning she was wondering when she would be going home and here she was, being offered the opportunity to finally leave New York, but finding herself unable to take it. Maybe it was a need to help Tyler or maybe it was a need to figure out what had happened in that chamber in the abbey, what had happened to the rest of his clan. She didn't know the exact reason. All she knew was that she couldn't, with a clear conscious, refuse.

She took a deep breath and nodded. "Alright. I'll do it." She said. "I, uh, promised Matthew Patrick that I would help him start a lending program between the university and the public library. So, I can work on that while I'm here."

The relief was visible on Delamore's face. "Thank you, Amy. And if you need anything, anything at all, you can call me or June directly. She'll give you the contact information while the paperwork is being filled out. Alright?"

She nodded again. "Alright."

"Good. Now, I'm sure Fischbach has had his ear to the door this whole time. So, let's get you all on your way."

Amy stood up and slung her bag back over her shoulder with a soft chuckle. "Do you two always get along so well?"

"We're two stubborn, old men trying to do our jobs. So, yes."

Amy noted his choice of the words "old men." Did he not know Mark's true age or was he just being cheeky?

"But," He crossed his arms over his chest. "as much as I would like to throttle him, I'd rather have him around than not."

"Oh, really?" She thought back to the conversation she had with Mark a few days ago, where he had complained over the way freelance agents were treated. Then, to the screaming match that had just occurred.

"Tell him I said that and I'll deny it up and down." He quickly added.

"You both have a funny way of expressing domestic bliss."

"He's one of my better agents. Even better than some of the department's actual agents. Since he started here, supernatural-related crime in Manhattan went down significantly and actually stayed down."

"How significantly?" She asked.

"Crime committed by commoners against supernaturals dropped by 32%. Crimes committed by supernaturals against commoners dropped by 68%. And crimes committed by supernaturals against supernaturals dropped by 83%."

"Oh. Wow." She assumed that "commoners" was the New York term for non-supernaturals. AKA humans. In most parts of Massachusetts, they were referred to as "chuckies," which apparently came from the term "chucklehead." 

"Yea, I was just as surprised. I even offered him a job as an official agent for the department."

"And he didn't take it?"

"He told me he would have to think about it. And then, a week later, he was arrested for trespassing."

"He told me about that." She furrowed her brows, "Does a criminal record prevent him from becoming an agent?"

"Usually, yes," He answered, "However, the circumstances surrounding his arrest were unique, so I would have been willing to overlook it if it meant having him in the department. But..." He trailed off.

"That was his answer to you, wasn't it?"

"I suspect so, yes."

Was it his own decision to refuse Delamore's offer? Or had Mark been ordered to refuse and even disqualify himself from becoming an agent by whatever freelance agency he worked for? Did this have anything to do with his file being "on lock down" as Mark himself had put it? These questions ran through Amy's head until Delamore placed a hand on her shoulder, snapping her out of her thoughts. He looked her in the eye with a sincere look on his face.

"I really do appreciate this, Amy." He said, "I'll get in contact with the university and explain the situation to them."

"Thank you," She nodded, then made her way to the door, "Now, I need to make sure my escort and my cat haven't killed each other yet."

"Your what?" He was understandably confused.

 She opened the door and turned to look at him. "Don't ask. It's a long story." Then closed it behind her.   


	10. That Which Lives and Abides

Mark hadn't been at the door with his ear pressed to it as Delamore had joked. But he had been pacing back and forth between the door and June's desk. When Amy finally emerged, he ran up to her with an expression so distraught that she was fully convinced that he believed she wouldn't be making it out of the office in one piece. He had grabbed her by the shoulders and asked her what happened, letting out an almost disappointed sigh when she informed him of her decision to accept Delamore's offer and take Tyler in for a year.

“You are just too good to be true, Amy Nelson.” He joked. Or at least, she hoped he was joking.

The next several hours were been spent going through massive amounts of paperwork. Custody papers, bank numbers, tax and income information. All complicated forms made even more complicated by the fact that Amy did not technically live in New York where the laws and regulations and even some terms were different. She sat in a chair she had pulled up to June's desk, scribbling down information, occasionally interrupting June's teasing of Marzipan with a fuzzy pen topper to ask a question.

Mark, on the other hand, sat with his back to them. She couldn't see his expression, but judging by his folded arms and tapping foot, Amy could tell he was not at all enthused at what was happening.

Because of Tyler's origins- or rather, his lack of origins- Amy needed to get him a birth certificate. There was a special form for the specific type of birth certificate they needed- one for beings awakening from Tempus Somnum. It had the usual things a normal certificate would have: Name, sex, mother and father's name. But instead of _Place of Birth_ and _Date of Birth_ , it was _Approximate Place of Birth_ and _Approximate Date of Birth_. But those prompts were not the ones giving her trouble. June had informed her she could simply write Western Europe and 900 AD as they were, after all, the approximate answers.

No, what had her stumped was what to fill out for his name. Tyler was not his actual first name and his tribe's name, the thing that would have been the closes equivalent to a last name, was an unreadable and unpronounceable jumble of Germanic symbols. So, after what seemed like an eternity of sitting and tapping the pen on the desk trying to think, she trying her best to anglicize the spelling and pronunciation.

_Tyler. Scheid._

_Sh-eyed._

She supposed it would have to do.

After a few hours of filling out forms, they were informed that they were ready to bring Tyler up and Amy found herself getting more and more restless as time went on. She got up from her chair and began slowly pacing in the area around June's desk. Finally, she saw them, Tyler and two uniformed officers, walking past the large window that was the opposite wall. Tyler's wrists were handcuffed, which was understandable, but he still look better than he did the last time Amy had seen him. His clothes weren't torn or bloodied and when they walked in the room, she could see he was even wearing shoes.

An apprehensive hush fell over the whole office as the three approached her. Many of the agents present, even Mark, stood up as if to be ready if something happened and Amy could hear Delamore's office door open and close behind her. When they stood in front of her, one of the officers unlocked the cuffs and both of them took a short step away from the two of them.

She looked up at him and he looked down at her. His eyes weren't dead or distant as they had been before. They seemed tired, yes, but they were aware of what was going on.

Amy found herself smiling. “Hey, Tyler.” She said softly, trying not to let the obvious audience distract her, “How are you doing, big guy?”

His gazed slowly moved to look at the crowd of people gawking at him. This only made everyone visibly tense up.

Amy reached her head out to gently touch Tyler's arm, snapping his attention back to her.

“You're gonna be staying with me for a little while. Does that sound good?”

He nodded. Then slowly, but without warning, he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her.

There was a loud and sudden shuffling of chairs and feet as almost everyone made some kind of move toward them. But Amy managed to hold her hand up underneath Tyler's massive arm, signaling that she was okay.

She rubbed and patted his back for a bit while quietly assuring him that everything was going to be okay, before pulling away from the hug.

“We're just going to be a little bit longer. Can you sit and wait here for a little?”

Another nod.

She linked her arm through his and led him to the chair she had occupied at June's desk, then retrieved the chair that Mark was no longer occupying and pulling it up next to it. In the corner of her eye she could see the look on Mark's face had changed from anger to the faintest hint of a smile.

Delamore was standing in front of June, his arm reaching back to keep her behind him despite her protests. It seemed when Tyler hugged Amy, Delamore had grabbed June in case he had needed to act. His massive height made her tiny frame look even tinier and vice versa. He regained his composure and came closer to them.

Tyler had not yet sat down when the commissioner approached him. They stood at eye level, making Amy realize just how tall Tyler actually was.

Delamore held his arm out to him as if offering a handshake. “I told you I would help however I could.” He smiled. “If you ever need anything, you let me know.”

Tyler, in turn, reached out and clasped Delamore's forearm, resting his own in the other man's palm. At almost the exact same time, both men reached out and placed a hand on the others shoulder. Tyler looked him in the eye. “ _Gratias._ ” He said. “ _Gratias tibi valde._ ”

Delamore gripped Tyler's arm tight for a moment with a smile and clapped him on a shoulder a couple times before releasing his grip and turning away. He only got a few steps before Tyler spoke again.

“ _Dominus vobiscum._ ” He said. More confidently than he had said anything so far.

There were a few soft gasps from the crowd. June even brought up a hand to cover her mouth in apparent shock. She looked back and forth between the two men, as if waiting for one of them to act.

Delamore, however, only chuckled as he turned back around. “ _Et cum spiritu tuo._ ” He replied, then turned and continued on his way, past June, stopping only to say a few hushed things to her, then into his office.

June addressed the agents. “Alright! Alright! This isn't the Jerry Springer Show! Everyone get back to work!”

A wave of objections and groans washed over the office, but everyone obeyed. They returned to their desks, filing cabinets, and phone calls. Even the small crowd of the people that had gathered at the large, windowed wall dispersed like groups of school children trying to avoid getting in trouble.

Tyler sat down and was immediately beset upon by Marzipan. She jumped from the desk onto his lap, rubbing her back and sides all over him before sitting and glaring at him, an expectant look on her face. They stared at each other for a few seconds, then Tyler brought up a hand to scratch behind her ear, earning himself an approving purr.

Mark pulled up another chair next to the desk. He wasn't getting involved in anything, but was just observing. His gaze lazily switching from person to person, but lingering on Amy a little bit longer than the rest.

A couple more hours were spent filing more forms. A few of them actually required Tyler's signature, so Amy took this opportunity to teach him how to write his name. Or at least, copy it. She slowly wrote it down on a piece of scrap paper, saying each letter out loud as she went and demonstrating how each one was formed. Then, she handed the pen and slide the paper in front of him, telling him to practice a few times before signing anything.

It took a while and a few tries. The letters were too close together at some parts and too far from each other at others. The L bled into the E and on some of the tries, he forgot half the letters. But, after a few gentle corrections from Amy, he managed to make it legible enough to sign. The forms look almost comical now, the contrast of the large, childlike print among the elegant and clean cursive. But, Amy felt a small bit of pride for his accomplishment. Maybe she _could_ help Tyler after all?

Eventually, everything was finished.

June gave Amy a large binder to hold all the files she needed to keep with her and even handed her a paper shopping bag containing a few articles of clothing. She informed her that it would take a week or so for the housing and clothing allowances to clear, but Project Re-awakening had some donated clothes to help hold them over until then.

Goodbyes and a few more thank yous were exchange, then the group headed out. Amy linked armed with Tyler again. This seemed to help in calming him down. Especially when they were forced to use the elevator. He was visibly uncomfortable and tense the whole ride down. The fact that people were staring at him due to his size, reputation, and the brown cat draped over his shoulder, wasn't helping.

At one point in the agonizingly slow descent, Amy looked at his arm and noticed the stone lesions beginning to form. She placed a gentle hand over them and he looked down at her at the sudden feeling.

“It's okay, Tyler.” She whispered with a soft smile and the rock crumbled under her hand.

When the elevator ride ended and they made their way back to the lobby, she stopped just before the doors leading to the chaos outside. It had occurred to Amy that although Tyler had been out in the city before, he had been out in the city during the night. New York was the city that never sleeps, but it did have a period of relative calm. That calm period was not the one they were in.

“Alright,” She said, “There's going to be a lot of people out there. A lot of noise. A lot of pushing and shoving. Most of them will leave you alone, but some of them may try to talk to you and you don't have to answer them. Okay?”

He nodded.

The binder and bag were taken from her hands by Mark. “I've got these, you make sure he doesn't lose it.” He said before she could protest and held open the doors as Amy guided the hulking Visigoth outside.

Tyler blinked several times as his eyes adjusted to the light and Amy couldn't blame him. She hadn't even noticed how dark it had been in the office. Despite the glaring daylight, he looked around in wide-eyed wonder. The cars, the buildings, the people. There was visible apprehension in his eyes, but awe seemed to win out over fear.

She let him stand and stare for a little while before gently leading him along. As they walked, Tyler looked at what was in front of and around him. Food carts letting off massive amounts of heat and a plethora of pleasant scents as they passed. Cars rolling by and stopping short to beep at pedestrians that stepped out in front of them. When they stopped at crosswalks or when the crowd got so dense they were slowed to a halt, he looked upwards at the towering pillars of glass and metal. Once or twice, Amy looked up at him and couldn't help but smile at how amazed he was. Even when the skyscrapers changed to the townhouses and modest apartments, he still took it all in with stunned fascination.

However, his excitement seemed to die down when they made it into Mark's building and, again, Amy couldn't blame him. Of all the wonders the modern world had to offer combined with all the wonders the big city had to offer, the florescent lights and scuffed floors of the empty apartment's lobby was hardly one of the seven wonders. He did glance at the brass elevator as they walked near it, but with less wonderment and more thinly-veiled contempt for the thing.

“We don't have to use the elevator.” Amy assured him, “We can use the stairs here.” A statement that, five floors worth of stairs later, she would regret saying.

Of course, Mark jabbed the elevator call button as soon as he could and after waiting for the cage to come screeching down and getting inside it, he passed the three of them on the way up. Mockingly waving at them as he went.

When they finally got to the top, he was waiting by his apartment door, tapping his foot. He began to unlock it as he spoke. “The middle bedroom upstairs is free.” he said, “ As long as Marzipan hasn't taken it for herself yet.” He walked inside, followed by the rest of them. He placed the binder on the coffee table and turned to hand the bag of clothes to Amy.

“Thank you.” She said. She was going to say something else but trailed off when it hit her: she hadn't even thought about her current living situation- or rather, her lack of one- when she had agreed to take Tyler in. She knew she would have to find an apartment in New York, but she didn't even ask Mark if she could continue to stay at his place, plus one guest and cat.

She couldn't help but feel like a complete jerk.

She led Tyler into the kitchen, silently cursing at the sight of the spiral staircase that they were forced to climb. Marzipan jumped from Tyler's shoulder to the counter top to the floor then walked up ahead of them. Amy had to un-link arms with him to ascend the stairs, but as soon as they made it up, she placed a hand on his back and continued to guide him to the second door in the hallway.

It opened to a small room, furnished similarly to hers. A bed, a dresser, and a night stand and like hers, it was well kept with very little dust on anything. It made Amy wonder how often people spent the night here that these two unused rooms were so well taken care of.

“Here's your room.” She said, entering first and placing the plastic bag on the dresser. She watched as he slowly walked in, looking around and taking everything in. The white Venetian blinds, the navy bedspread that Marzipan was now sprawling herself out on, the small lamp on the night stand. He reached out and ran his fingers across the cloth of the lampshade and when it shifted under his touch, he nudged the spokes at the top and spun it slowly.

“Now, we're only staying here for a short time.” She said. “This is Mark's house but I'm gonna find us a place to live somewhere in the city.”

He stopped fiddling with the shade to nod at her.

“But until then,” Amy moved past him and stepped out into the hallway to point at her own door. “I'm in the room right next to you. If you need anything or just want to talk. I'm right here, okay?” He nodded again.

She re-entered the room and began removing the clothes from the bag and placing them in the drawers. There wasn't a lot of pieces; a few pairs of jeans, a few shirts, and a new, unopened pack of both underwear and socks. She set them all neatly in the top drawer and crumbled the bag into a ball, stuffing it into her pocket.

“Thank you.”

She turned at the sound of his voice. He was sitting on the bed now, one hand in his lap and the other gently stroking Marzipan. He was facing her, but his eyes were downcast.

“Delamore told me that he would ask you to take me in.” He continued, “You did not have to accept. I do not know why you would. But you did.” He looked up at her. “Thank you.”

Amy suddenly found herself blinking back a few tears. The sudden hug back at the office now made more sense and all doubt she felt about her decision seemed to vanish. Like a lead blanket dropping off her shoulders. She sat on the edge of the bed- avoiding sitting on the cat- and smiled at him.

“You needed help.” She said reaching out and placing a gentle hand on his arm, “And I wanted to help you. We all do.” She decided against telling him of her desire to learn who was responsible for the destruction of his clan.

Tyler looked down at the floor again. His brows were furrowed as if he were thinking of something else he'd wanted to say. She gave him a moment, just in case he changed his mind, but when it became obvious that he would only remain silent she spoke up again.

“And we're gonna get you the help you need. Someone is gonna come over and their gonna teach you how to read and write. And if you need any help with that outside of those lessons I can help you. And we're gonna get you some clothes so you have more than just two things to wear.” She smiled, “Sound good?”

He looked up at her with the slightest ghost of a smile on his face and slowly nodded.

“Good.” She stood up and began to walk out of the room, stopping and turning back around when she stepped into the hallway. “Remember, I'm right next door if you need me.” She pointed to her door again. Then, the opposite direction. “And that door at the end of the hallway is the, uh,” She snapped her fingers a few times, “I don't know what you would know it as. _Latrinum? Lavatio?_ ”

“Bathroom.” He said.

“Okay, good.” She let out a relieved sigh and walked away.

The kitchen was dim, the only light was the few amber rays coming through the windows. She hadn't realized how late it had gotten while they were at the Department office. Mark wasn't in the kitchen, but after stopping to throw the plastic bag in the garbage bin, she found him sitting on the couch, his legs up on the coffee table, arms crossed over his chest. His head was turned as he stared disinterested toward the windows.

“So,” She started, not really knowing what she was going to say, “Marzipan hadn't taken the room for herself. But she may have just now. We might wake up and Tyler might be sleeping on the floor while Marzipan hogs the bed.”

He didn't respond. She sat on the other couch, feeling too awkward and nervous to lean back and relax.

“I'm gonna try and take him shopping tomorrow. Maybe do some apartment hunting.”

Still, no answer.

“Might take him by the library. Update Matthew and Stephanie on everything. Get started on the lending program.”

Nothing.

This was killing her.

“Thank you,” she said, “for letting us stay here. I didn't even ask you or consult you about it, I just kinda,” she fumbled for a word, “went with it. And I'm sorry.”

“You don't have to be sorry.” He finally spoke up, looking over at her, “I was pissed off at the DoSS office, yes, but it wasn't because of anything you did. It was the fact that Delamore asked you to begin with. He knew you would say yes.”

“He didn't know I would say yes.” She corrected with a slight smirk.

He sighed. “I know. It just sucks that your stuck in this dump.” He looked back at the windows, motioning his hand towards them as if to refer to New York City as a whole.

“You really don't like Manhattan, do you?”

“It's not exactly in my top five favorite places.”

“Why do you live here, then?” She asked, “Surely, you could freelance somewhere else. I'd bet Delamore would be more than willing to recommend you to literally any other branch of the DoSS.”

Mark didn't answer. He continued to stare out the window, but his eyes were glazed over, as if he were looking at something so much further away.

It seemed familiar. She'd seen on her first day here when they were at the library. Matthew had expressed his enjoyment of the afterlife, despite the fact that he was forever trapped in the building. Amy had looked over at Mark and saw an aching sadness in his eyes. The same sadness that was there now.

He obviously felt that he was trapped in this city, but was he actually?

The refusal of Delamore's offer. The “lock down” status of his file. It began to make _some_ kind of sense.

“Is your freelance agency forcing you to stay in New York?”

He only slowly turned his head to look at her. He didn't say anything, but Amy was sure he had answered.

He finally spoke up. “What would be the opposite of _persona non grata?_ ”

“Mark-”

“Like exile, but to a specific place rather than from a place?”

She gave an exasperated sighed, but humored him.“Being stationed, I guess.”

He nodded to himself.“Sounds about right.”

“How is that possible? What freelance agency has the power to station someone somewhere.”

Mark let his gaze drop to the floor. He sat in silence for a moment before letting out a long sigh and rising from the couch. He shuffled around the table and sat himself on the edge of it in front of Amy. Close enough that she had to lean back as he leaned forward to pull his wallet from his back pocket. From the slit where money would be kept he pulled a folded, yellowed piece of paper and handed to her.

She tentatively took it from him. The paper was so worn it felt more like cloth. It had been handled a lot; the folds had small tears at the edges and some writing could be seen through from the other side in a few places.

She unfolded it. It was a letter. Short and probably very formal and cold. But, the first thing her eyes settled on was the large seal at the top of it.

Two keys crossed under an ornate crown. Encircled with the phrase _STATO DELLA CITTA DEL VATICANO._

The seal of The Vatican.

She looked up at him. Her eyes were wide with confusion and the slightest hint of fear and she had a hundred more questions than before, but she was dumbstruck. “The Va-?!”

Mark leaned a bit closer and placed a finger to his lips, quietly but urgently shushing her.

“How?” Was the only other thing Amy could think of saying. “How?!”

He sighed. “It's complicated.”

“They just have a branch that acts as a freelance agency?” She followed Mark's lead and began to whisper. “Does Delamore know about this?”

“They operate an agency based in Rome,” He explained, “But, they operate mostly under the table.”

“Why?”

“The same reason any organization operates in secret: to hide all the fucked up shit they do.” He almost growled the later half of the sentence, that combined with the sudden cursing sent a chill up Amy's spine.

“What do they do?”

He gave a deep breath.

“Mark. Please-”

He put his finger to his lips again, though he wasn't looking at her this time. His eyes were lazily cast downward and his brows were furrowed as if he were contemplating telling her what she wanted to know.

He spoke again, in the same whispered tone. “For a while now- the past few centuries, actually and with varying success- The Vatican has been trying to form it's own...” He shrugged, “Army, I guess. It's the only word that seems appropriate. Although not quite that large in scale. Strike team? Task force? Maybe?” He shook his head and seemed to give up searching for a word, “I don't know what you would call it-”

“But, why would they need a personal army?” She asked, “They still have the Swiss Guard.”

“Yes, but the Swiss Guard is for security. They want a band of merry assholes to do all their dirty work.”

Amy was hesitant to ask, but felt she needed to. “What kind of dirty work?”

“The same kind of dirty work the church has been up to for thousands of years.” He let out a dark chuckle, “Destroying any supernatural they can't control and controlling any supernatural they can't destroy.”

She looked back down at the seal on the letter. It was true that history saw many religions clashing with supernatural beings. Of course, it depended on the religion and the being. A spirit that helped the growth and yields of crops would have been treated much better than an undead being that required human blood or flesh to live.

But the Catholic church was known to reject even the benevolent and benign beings. They believed that only humans were the creation of God and that any being that looked human but was not, was an imitation created by the devil.

Which would have been fine if not for their attempt to rid the world of said beings.

More recent centuries have seen the church ease back on its fanatical crusade. Most saw this more as PR than any actual attempt at reform. But whatever the reason was, it was a positive change. Church-run schools, hospitals, and shelters opened their doors to supernatural individuals and some churches even began welcoming them among their clergy.

A personal death squad formed with the sole purpose of destroying supernaturals seemed extreme even for them.

“Humans hunting monsters was the original template,” Mark continued, snapping Amy out of her thoughts, “but human's are fragile compared to most supernaturals. No offense.”

She assumed that was an attempt at lightening the mood.

“So, they pulled out all stops to try and level the playing field. They used holy relics and white magic. But, in the end, they found that the easiest way,” He sighed again, “was to breed hybrid humans.”

“What?” She said, a sickly feeling forming in the pit of her stomach, “What do you mean... 'breed?'”

“I mean exactly what you think I mean.” He shifted a bit, clearly just as uncomfortable with the idea as she was, “Damphyrs were their go-to because they were the easiest to control. And the easiest to get. All you need is one cooperative-or heavily sedated- male vampire and as many ladies of ill-repute that God's money can buy. Nine months later, you've got the first of the troops.”

“So they just impregnated these women and held them there? That's disgusting!”

“Yea, well...” He shrugged.

“How have they gotten away with this?”

“Because if I hadn't told you, would you have believed it?”

He was right. If anyone other than Mark had told her, she would have brushed it off. The whole thing sounded like a crazy conspiracy. Like something one of the drug-addled bums that littered her walk to work would shout while waving a cardboard sign.

“But, even without all that,” He continued, “what they were doing was not technically illegal. Fucked up and unethical, yes. But not illegal. All of the women they recruited were there of their own will. They were fed, they were clothed, any children they already had were taken care of. They weren't just treated like cattle.” He sighed and looked up at her. “For whatever _that's_ worth.”

It wasn't worth much, but Amy supposed it was better than the alternative. Another question came to the front of her mind as she pushed those thoughts back.

“But what does all this have to do with you?” She asked, “You said your parents met in the South Pacific. And that your mother is a vampire, not your father.”

Something in his temperament changed. As he spoke of the vile practices of the church, his resentment was subtle but evident. But now, as she asked this question, he was different.

He took a deep breath in, running a hand down his face and stopping to rub his chin. He shakily exhaled in that certain way one does when trying to keep one's composure. Without warning, he plucked the letter from Amy's hand, folding it back up to place it back in his wallet.

“It's, uh...” He whispered, “It's complicated.”

“Mark, please-” She reached out and placed her hand on top of his, causing him to tense up and...was that a gasp?

“Sorry!” She quickly recoiled. She hadn't meant to touch him. She was trying to grab the letter back from him. At least, that's what she was telling herself. “I'm sorry!”

He stayed like that for a moment; staring down at the folded paper half in and half out of the pocket of the wallet. He took another deep but shaky breath and finished putting the letter back. Then, from another pocket, pulled a small, yellowed handkerchief folded into a small square. He didn't hand it to her like he did the letter, but rather, held it almost delicately.

“Damphyrs that are fathered by vampires are easily produced.” He repeated, “One male vampire can impregnate several women. But a female vampire can only have one child at a time. So, damphyrs fathered by humans are a lot rarer. But they're a lot stronger.” He stroked a thumb over the once-white fabric, “So, when the church gets news of, uh, what they _affectionately_ refer to as 'a dead womb damphyr,' they do whatever they can to...obtain them.”

“How?”

“It depends on the situation. For us, it was after my father passed away. We were, uh,” He paused, taking another deep breath, “I was still just a kid and we were sort of wandering the world trying to figure out what to do next. A monastery approached my mother and offered her a chance to send me to Rome to be educated.” He chuckled softly, “Now, in spite of everything, my mother is a woman of faith so she was overjoyed at the idea. And they weren't lying about that part. I did get proper schooling and I was taken care of- I even got to stay in contact with my mother- but I realized too late why they wanted me.”

“Too late for what?”

“Too late to get out.”

“What makes it too late?”

He gripped the bundled handkerchief ever-so-slightly. “They have a pretty hefty bargaining chip to get me to cooperate.”

Amy felt her stomach drop. She didn't want to ask because she felt she knew the answer and yet at the same time, didn't want to know it.

“What bargaining chip?”

He didn't answer.

“Mark...”

Nothing.

“It's her, isn't it? It's your mother.” She unwittingly began to grow louder, “They have her. What are they-” She was cut short by Mark placing his finger over her lips, shushing her as he had done before. Amy felt a chill run down her spine and was unsure if it was caused by the physical contact or the glazed over look in Mark's eyes.

He reached down and grabbed one of her hands, turning her palm up and gently placing the folded square into it. It was an old silk handkerchief. Not one that would be used for hygienic purposes, but for embellishment in a suit pocket. But it wasn't just a handkerchief; there was something encased in it.

“Open it.” He whispered. “I can't touch it.”

She unfolded the cloth as gently as she could and found out why.

It was a rosary. A silver chain connecting irregular, white pearls. The connecting center piece depicted The Virgin Mary holding an infant Christ and it and the crucifix were old and slightly worn, but not tarnished. The metal was as pure silver as it could be. Even a damphyr would be harmed by it's touch.

“My mother prayed this rosary every night.” He said, “It would burn her hands every single time, but she still did it. She'd carry it with her where ever she went and she'd keep it on her bedside table or under her pillow.”

Amy looked up at him. He was looking at the rosary, a thousand-yard-stare of forlorn longing.

“When they sent me to New York, I saw it as my chance to get out. I told them I wasn't going to be their errand boy anymore and-” His voice cracked and he paused a moment to recover before clearing his throat, “And they sent me that.”

“How did they get it?”

“Turns out they'd been keeping an eye on her since I was sent to Rome. I guess they wanted to see if she'd have anymore children. Obviously she didn't. But, I guess they just took it from her house. She called me a few days later and was devastated thinking that she'd somehow lost it.”

“But you didn't tell her you had it.”

“I knew they were listening to the phone call. They always had been. I just told her not to worry and that she'd find it eventually.”

A silence fell over them.

Outside, a few cars beeped as they rolled down the road. Someone shouted unintelligible words to someone else as metal lids clanked down on trash cans.

“When was that?”

He seemed to snap out of his thoughts. “What?”

“How long ago was that? How long have you been in New York?”

Mark sighed again and stood up. He paced a few steps while rubbing his eyes exhaustively before stopping and looking down at her. “What year was Reagan elected president?”

Amy's jaw almost dropped. “What?”

“The first time, though. I know he got re-elected after that-”

“1981. That was 36 years ago, Mark.”

“Oh, yea. That sounds right.” He nodded, “I remember 'cause people were still holding candlelight vigils for John Lennon.”

“You've been stuck in New York for 36 years, Mark.”

“Yea, well,” He said in a matter-of-fact tone, sassily putting his hands on his hips, “I guess that's how long it takes to get used to the noise the elevator makes.”

Another silence.

“They own this building, don't they? That's why we haven't encountered a single person in the days I've been here.”

“That's why.” He gave a dark chuckle.

Amy's gaze fell back to the rosary. She didn't know the exact steps of praying with it, but she knew it took quite a bit of time to do so. Mark's mother was so devoted, she endured a material and symbolism and verse that has been used throughout history to kill her kind. The thought of someone breaking into another person's home and stealing something so precious only to used it as blackmail against a loved one, filled Amy with a disgust she didn't know she could feel.

She gently folded the silk square up and handed it back to Mark, who accepted it with a quiet 'thank you.'

“I'm sorry.” Was all she could think to say.

“No, don't be sorry. I'm the one who should be sorry.” He sat down again. This time, next to her on the couch. “I've been unloading secrets and personal baggage on to you since you got here.”

“To be fair, I figured most of them out by myself.”

He suddenly laughed. She could still see the pain behind his eyes, but the sight of his smile made her smile. “You've got a lot more to worry about than my bullshit.”

“Well, don't worry. I'm gonna be in New York a while, so I've got nothing but time to hear more of your bullshit.”

“I don't know.” He said, “I'm thinking your schedule's gonna be full what with you technically being a single mother now.”

“Jesus Christ.” It was Amy's turn to rub her face. But, despite her exasperation, she couldn't help but burst into laughter. Because he was right.

“But, hey, you look good for someone with a thousand-year-old son.” He teased with a playful slap on her arm.

“Is this payback for the whole 'don't look a day over 50' joke?”

“You said you were all for hearing the bullshit. I'm just giving you what you want.”

“I'm going to bed.” She stood up and made her way to the entryway to the kitchen.

“Shouldn't you stop in to read Junior a bedtime story?” He shouted.

“Goodnight, Mark.” She answered, not even stopping or looking back.

She crossed the kitchen and made her way up the stairs, out of earshot, leaving him sitting in silence. The only noise was the sounds of the city outside, beginning to wind down but still very active despite the late hour.

He looked down at the small bundle of fabric in his hand. He ran his thumb over the lumps created by the crucifix folded inside it and he could feel the heat from the silver against his skin, even through the layers of silk.

He sighed and gripped it tighter, taking a kind of comfort in the burning sensation.

“Too good to be true...”


End file.
